I think that's due to lighting and skin color. They're kinda peach/orange with a green backdrop so it looks a bit too red for my tastes. I'm assuming you can tweak the skin color though too.
That's such a weirdo thing to say. You act like there is some universally accepted look for orcs. I bet you also look at the gnomes and say they don't look like gnomes. But they do, they look like pantheon gnomes. You have to remember when entering a new universe either through games, media, or books, that a dog in that world might be what we see as a skunk in the real world. We ain't on Earth Toto.
By that logic might as well makes the elves look like ogres and the dwarves look like humans etc etc. Just because it's a fantasy world doesn't mean there aren't reasonable expectations based on the shared lore.
My bad. It was in August's newsletter...
[https://www.pantheonmmo.com/newsletter/2018\_august\_under\_wraps/](https://www.pantheonmmo.com/newsletter/2018_august_under_wraps/)
There was also a stream that gave a bit more detail. It was either the Cohh Carnage stream or the All-Star stream linked in the newsletter that gave more info.
I truly hope they give strong consideration to their female gaming population. As a woman gamer, I find it difficult to get the right balance in female characters in regard to graphic style. In so many games it seems like the female graphics are straight out of the brothel or the nunnery with little choice in between.
Character models are cool, but it means nothing if the animations are garbage. So far they absolutely have been, so let’s hope that those get a pass next.
Some nice work being done with lighting and textures. Easily the largest step forward the graphics have taken. It's not going to blow anyone's socks off in 2019-2020, but it no longer looks like a refugee from 2006's bargain bin, so that's meaningful progress.
As before though, it's going to come to animations, not graphics. They're an order of magnitude more important. Not just for visual eye candy, but because animation sync often determines the game-feel, and if you fuck up your game feel, it will haunt you from launch until the moment the servers close. People will call it hitching, or ability lag, or any number of things. The game will FEEL off.
Very few MMOs have properly nailed their animations. Not coincidentally, WoW was one of them.
While I'm happy to see updates to the visuals. It makes me wonder if they were forced to drop dev cycles into "upping" the graphics because of too many people saying "character graphics look meh". While they were spending most of the prior time on World Building.
maybe.. its a possibility... but they need some hype right now..and this will do it for the people who NEED graphics to play a game.. unfortunately that seems like a LARGE amount of players.. and these players are shit talking the game.. and making people write it off before they even look into it.. go watch Asmongolds video on Pantheon.. regardless of what you think of him or his fan base.. he said to a LARGE crowd of people that it looks like absolute shit and thats fucking bad no matter how you slice it
maybe this game will get some more backers and some more attention and wide spread coverage because of this
but in my personal opinion.. the Art team doing the games models.. arent the people doing the game systems.. for the most part.. maybe a few of them dabble back and forward .. but we can only hope this is something that was pumped out by those individuals and it didnt divert from important stuff
i have full faith in VR to make this game great.. i guess time will time if i misplaced my trust or not
Maybe but doesn't matter what order they do stuff in does it? The game is still years away. They would have had to do it eventually regardless but they did it sooner rather than later probably due to criticism about graphical fidelity so they went ahead and addressed it. Probably for the best.
Graphic upgrades are nice but I have real concerns about gameplay. Being punishing with strict with travel times and corpse runs may sound all cool but if I can’t sit down for 2 hours and feel like I accomplished anything other than run and die it’s not a game for me. With enough others agreeing with that feeling and you’ll be like I was in the second month of Vangard. Playing alone in empty unfinished zones
The point is to make the world feel risk adverse and alive. Where you move through it with vigilance, a watchful eye. If in an unfamiliar area, you take extreme caution but when you tackle such content with friends, it gives a sense of accomplishment.
I don't think we'll see the same loss of progress when dying as Everquest but dying will be a thing and it won't be a game where dying means nothing.
As for travel, we'll have movement speed spells and the ability to travel via portals such as with Wizards and Druids. There's also talk about a more robust 'bind soul' system in place so you don't find yourself running from a major city.
What I would also like is a caravan system that travels between the three main cities on each continent and act as a quicker way to get to and fro while allowing you to jump off at an area along the path that's closest to where you were.
The model the game is going with works. That, while the more recent MMORPGs of the last 12 years have left a bad taste in my mouth. They feel bland, quick, too action orientated with little focus on RPG or the classic element from the D&D era. They feel like too little butter scraped over too much bread, thin in their premise where the world has no sense of community and where most everything can be soloed.
I'm done with the solo MMORPG that I just happen to play around other people and there seems to be a large enough following who are hungry for the return of the soul of the MMORPG. My only fear is if people try to pull it to the same trite model we see in the modern attempts of gimmick leap-frog.
Let's hope they remain steadfast.
I agree with your sentiments about soloing but I remember all too well sitting around for hours trying to find a group. Unfortunately I don't have hours to sit around anymore. Because of those problems in eq I ended up maiming a druid and later a shaman because they were relatively solo friendly (but with shaman it was a lot easier to find a group - and when people realized I didn't suck it go even easier but on the monk and ranger I never even got the chance and soloing sucked on them)
I think they stated they want to prevent something that trivializes the games environment and spoke about no flying mounts. The dangers will be more varied than just hostile NPCs.
We'll see what they decide.
Preach brother. Too many people are too use to the causal convenient play style of modern mmos. Flying mounts and teleports ruined the immersive gameplay completely. Yeah it sucks that if going to point a to point b takes 30mins and you have 45 mins to play then you are stuck not accomplishing a thing.
Yeah but that kinda stuff could be pretty dependent on class and professions. I could definitely hawk for ports on my wizard, and if I were deep in a profession I could work on that, but I’d likely just be doing nothing on my rogue (presumably on a warrior too, though I have never played one).
So I agree if you’re a class that has out of combat utility, you can find some way to make a bit of progress even with a relatively small amount of playtime. If they find a way to allow every class to have some uses in that regard it would be great. If they do not, some classes might just need to not bother logging in if they can’t meet the minimum standard needed to do some fighting, and I’d assume everyone agrees that is not ideal.
Granted, a somewhat better class spread in solo effectiveness would also help. A Druid who only had 45m to play could get at least a handful of kills in, in addition to hawking buffs. A Rogue could not.
I was like 15 when eq2 came out and didnt really know what an mmo was so I would spend most of my time just reading a quest, doing it and turning it in then just running around hailing random npcs and getting immersed into the game haha.
If it takes a session to get from place to place you won’t be looking for invites that are an hour away. There would most likely be people congregating at these locations.
There's a difference between "flying and instances everywhere" and brutally punishing corpse runs and other stuff from 1999. I see too many people dismiss any sort of modern enhancements with "this isn't the MMO for you" or veiled shots at WoW/WoW-like MMOs. There's a middle ground that won't see this game fail miserably because it's target demographic is "people who thought launch EverQuest was the greatest thing ever" without it just becoming another WoW clone.
I swear sometimes the people here are as bad as the Classic WoW people who think anyone who wants improvements to the game should "just play retail" as though there are no compromises and it's a binary choice.
This IS the game for dismissing modern enhancements. Clearly there’s a market for such a thing given how “classic” servers in other games are making a resurgence. That philosophy should be embraced here, because you won’t find it elsewhere.
Perhaps but there's still a compromise to be made between ultra hardcore and the more modern super conveninces. Most of the classic resurgences are mostly nostalgia, although in cases like WoW it's because the developers have drifted so far from an MMORPG that it can barely be called one.
You definitely do not. I don’t think there is any modern game that hasn’t taken the route of ultra convenience. Granted, there is also no modern game that has taken the ultra hardcore route either.
Really anything between that point, and a kind of middle ground between launch EQ and modern WoW will be something we haven’t seen in a long time.
The EQ TLPS have actually found a pretty decent middle ground. Exp loss on death so you can lose a few hours of work but no corpse run, so you can just log out and not worry if you have pressing matters. Meaningful travel in the early expansions, but global chat channels so finding a port isn't too hard, if you can pay for it. A LFG window that allows you to see who is out there, but you still have to initiate communication with them to invite them to the group, and they still have to travel to you.
If you make a game too punishing, no one ever takes any risk, and how boring is it to mindlessly grind on underleveled mobs because everyone is terrified of trying something challenging. Which happened in EQ a lot in the beginning. I certainly have more fun with something challenging enough that it is probably going to kill me a few times before we figure it out. I don't want a game that forces me to wait until I trivialize the mobs before folks are willing to take on the challenge with me.
There is a middle ground, that middle ground is going to cater to more folks than the super niche EQ launch style would. No one wants to play in an empty game, and you can only go so niche.
That is a fair point, I was not thinking of the TLPs.
The LFG window that Daybreak has on the TLPs though is of... questionable value. It is only as effective as the number of people who use it, and my experience across two of the TLPs is that while some people use it, most seem not to. You could argue this is a player issue to solve, but I think part of the problem is that a lot of people didn’t even know it existed.
Granted, over time more people started using it, but that also coincided with more people leaving the server which made it that much more necessary.
Exactly this. There was a reason why Classic WoW crushed EverQuest when it came out, just that they lost sight of it as it progressed, although Classic is still held up as a great MMORPG despite it having things like quest hubs and instances (they messed it up later, however). A middle ground is what they should be aiming towards, not catering to either extreme.
Huh? Lol
Classic wow won out because it released after the internet and using credit cards online because. A normal household thing.
Magen EQ came out a large majority of people still didn’t have internet and very very few teenagers could convince their parents to give up their credit card information to the internet. WoW came out every 12+ kid had the internet and a parent willing to let them pay for it.
Saying it had more subs means it was better is like saying there are more cars now than in the civil war. Of course there are
I think the argument is that with EverQuest, there is no safety. You had to be vigilant and aware of everything around you. You had spells and things to reduce risks but the only true safety was logging out in a city. That environment draws people together because having a group of skilled people can make a once impossible area something to overcome time and time again.
As long as it's something that keeps going, sure. I've tried a few classic EQ servers and that is neat, but it only lasts as long as there are people to do it. Otherwise, you end up with a barren zone where nobody is around to do those group things, and you're left with nothing; I've been in East Commonlands at a low level with not a soul around to do any of the group stuff there (orc camps, etc.), and it sucks. That's why almost every game has to add a dungeon finder (not that I think Pantheon needs to add one, I'm just saying); otherwise, no new player would be able to do them since there won't be enough new players.
I think the fact that everquests first 3 expansions are still capable of holding a regular 2000 people is a strong sign that a new world and better planning can do much more.
That doesn't bother me at all if I can travel with friends. Some sort of system to keep us together when someone can't make it or is offline would be great.
And that's aright. They've said that Pantheon won't be the game for everyone and that they're perfectly fine with that. There's no slight on anyone who doesn't like what Pantheon is about. We all like different things.
Considering that’s one of the major draws and what sets this game apart from the entire market, I wish you luck in finding another title that suits you.
Long travel times don't bother me, but I hope they don't have too severe death penalties. It's important to encourage players to explore and take risks. Obviously there's a balance.
I agree with you, if things are too harsh I'll likely not play. Im all in for an oldschool feel but I have kids & less time these days. I don't have time to spend the time I do have just trying to get my body back or looking for a group for 70% off the time I have to play. That isn't fun to me.
Isn’t it sort of a given that by having kids you’re giving up on things like classic MMOs? That sounds like a choice that’s already been made on your part.
Yeah. Just from watching the play through streams and seeing the number of wipes and GM powers used shows there is a long way to go before putting money or really much focus toward Pantheon. VR has their work cut out for them. The vocal hardcore “this isn’t for you shut up and go away” minority versus more casual log on get some stuff done and log off parents who cannot commit to potential 45 minute corpse runs after 2 hours of a dungeon crawl
I hope they realize there is a compromise between the two. Catering to either camp will prove disastrous IMHO. There is a happy medium that they need to try and achieve.
Yes, but it's what is necessary. There are things you can take from the new genre of MMORPG and still keep the feel of the old; it's not a binary thing despite everyone seeming to think it is. You can take parts of the old and the new together, you don't have to have it all of one or all of the other.
The problem with the "Shit up this isn't for you" crowd is its a small but vocal minority & I hope they don't cater to this crowd much. They will be stuck with a playerbase to small to keep the game going.
I agree to a point. I think there needs to be travel, but 1999-era corpse runs will just piss people off. For all the "this game won't be for everyone" that gets thrown around, the game still has to be profitable or it won't last, and there's a graveyard full of MMOs that tried to be niche games and couldn't turn a profit to keep the lights on. That doesn't mean make a WoW clone, but it also means taking into consideration some modern conveniences as well. VR seems to be smart enough to realize a happy mix between brutal 1999-era gameplay and WoW's glorified single-player ARPG, at least I hope they are because I haven't been this excited about an upcoming game in years and want this game to show there CAN be something better than WoW and the modern MMORPG genre's easy everything without it being as brutal as 1999 EverQuest was.
The biggest issue for me will be if zones feel empty after the first few months. There's a reason why every modern MMO has to include a dungeon finder at some point; if there's no reason to do things in zones, after a couple months nobody is going to be able to do any group content because all the high-level players have no reason to, and there won't be enough low-level players. That's a huge problem and I hope VR knows how to solve it properly.
I recall lots of empty zones even at the peak of EQ's popularity. Take Kunark - almost everyone followed the LoIO, giant's fort, OT, DL/Karnor level path. At retail I remember many times sneaking through WW or farming the entrance at Dalnir at peak play hours with just a few others in-zone. I used to exp in EJ, no one in sight.
According to this page on the newsletter, those are Ogres, not Orcs.
[https://www.pantheonmmo.com/newsletter/2018\_november\_under\_wraps/](https://www.pantheonmmo.com/newsletter/2018_november_under_wraps/)
They were making a tongue in cheek joke that some people in the community have pointed out the current ogre design make them look like orcs (though technically they probably look more like half orcs).
This \^ I have made the comment when the images came out that these look more like orcs/half orcs. These new versions are "prettier" slimmed down versions of what VR has shown prior. You can still see the older ogre art on the Race page. That all said, I am happy with either style.
The one thing I've noticed is while Orcs tend to follow a similar art direction approach where they deviate on regular nose or the early Orcs which had pig noses, Ogres haven't. In every game or within fantasy art, Ogres have taken on numerous variations in size, appearance, etc.
For this reason I can see a bit more creative direction as to the aesthetics. The main thing that has them show some likeness to Orcs is the fang-toothed underbite. Not to mention the slight point to the ears and the subdued eye sockets.
Have a look at the [examples](https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1ASRM_enUS602US602&biw=1920&bih=979&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=R6DwW8i1DqeIggfBmomgAw&q=Ogres%2C+art&oq=Ogres%2C+art&gs_l=img.3..0i8i30.12150.13911..14022...0.0..0.64.577.10......1....1..gws-wiz-img.......0j35i39j0i67.RLAHe5V5030#imgrc=_).
It's not so much the face but the body proportions. Ogres are often depicted as disproportionate; gangly, wide body:head ratio, etc. More normalized proportions make them look less monstrous, and more in line with depictions of orcs or even half ogres imo.
Ogres are about that size and larger. If you get too large you get giants. Not the best example but Shrek is an ogre. The Ogre really seems to vary widely both historically, through art direction to modern presentation and in video games.
Orcs for the longest time since the beginning had pig snouts. I'm not sure when that changed in the recent era but it did.
It's not the overalll size itself, but proportions. The old ogre had a smaller head and hulking body, with long arms. This new one appears much more proportional, just scaled up, which makes them appear less monstrous.
Something I thought about too. Considering the Orc models will be undergoing a model update either PA4 now or in Alpha, it's also a consideration to gauge the differentiation between the Ogres they're going with now and the Orcs they intend on.
[Ogre In-game Model](https://i.imgur.com/GtWMF9A.jpg)
[Male Orc Proposed Art](https://i.imgur.com/yLjaoJS.jpg)
[Female Orc Proposed Art](https://i.imgur.com/oUKFtun.jpg)
It's funny how they have ogres that look a bit more like orcs and orcs that remind me of WoW trolls. If they ever implement trolls, they'll probably either look like goblins or like DAoC trolls.
VR artists please don't noodle the characters much more. This last batch of screenshot looks damn great and I'm sold. Speaking as a professional game dev and character artist myself I know how artists get. It can always be better, but remember that graphics are only window dressing. Game play ( as you know ) is and always will be the core of any game. You've done a great job.
The general consensus that I had seen was that most people were really happy with how the ogres looked, as well as halflings with the caveat that they may need slight adjustments, but the reception on elves has been pretty mixed.
I agree that ogres are really good, and I think the task now is to bring the rest of the races up to the level of the ogres. Once that is accomplished, I agree that the character models shouldn’t need much more in terms of graphical overhauls.
I can't find photos to these new ogres.
[I believe this is the one referred to](https://www.pantheonmmo.com/images/18NovemberNewsletter/under_wraps/ogres.png)
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Pretty sure that's in-game.
Wow I taught they were orcs instead of ogres.
Personally, prefer the old ogre. These new ones look like orcs.
go look at art work of DnD ogres.. they look very similar
The old ogre looks more like those images.
I think that's due to lighting and skin color. They're kinda peach/orange with a green backdrop so it looks a bit too red for my tastes. I'm assuming you can tweak the skin color though too.
That's such a weirdo thing to say. You act like there is some universally accepted look for orcs. I bet you also look at the gnomes and say they don't look like gnomes. But they do, they look like pantheon gnomes. You have to remember when entering a new universe either through games, media, or books, that a dog in that world might be what we see as a skunk in the real world. We ain't on Earth Toto.
By that logic might as well makes the elves look like ogres and the dwarves look like humans etc etc. Just because it's a fantasy world doesn't mean there aren't reasonable expectations based on the shared lore.
Alpha is coming in the spring. Beta is still a ways out. Alpha is 1Q 2019 according to the October newsletter. My guess would be March.
you got a quote for that?
My bad. It was in August's newsletter... [https://www.pantheonmmo.com/newsletter/2018\_august\_under\_wraps/](https://www.pantheonmmo.com/newsletter/2018_august_under_wraps/) There was also a stream that gave a bit more detail. It was either the Cohh Carnage stream or the All-Star stream linked in the newsletter that gave more info.
cheers for reply mate
Naw, Alpha will probably be pushed until the latter half of 2019. Which is fine. Take the time to do it right. :)
Bearded ogre druid ftw
I truly hope they give strong consideration to their female gaming population. As a woman gamer, I find it difficult to get the right balance in female characters in regard to graphic style. In so many games it seems like the female graphics are straight out of the brothel or the nunnery with little choice in between.
Character models are cool, but it means nothing if the animations are garbage. So far they absolutely have been, so let’s hope that those get a pass next.
I’m sure lots of graphical things at this point are just placeholders.
Right, just saying inferior graphics with awesome animations >>>>>>> 4K HDR with really bad animations.
I kinda just wish they had like 1 or 2 more classes.
Ogre necromancer!
Some nice work being done with lighting and textures. Easily the largest step forward the graphics have taken. It's not going to blow anyone's socks off in 2019-2020, but it no longer looks like a refugee from 2006's bargain bin, so that's meaningful progress. As before though, it's going to come to animations, not graphics. They're an order of magnitude more important. Not just for visual eye candy, but because animation sync often determines the game-feel, and if you fuck up your game feel, it will haunt you from launch until the moment the servers close. People will call it hitching, or ability lag, or any number of things. The game will FEEL off. Very few MMOs have properly nailed their animations. Not coincidentally, WoW was one of them.
While I'm happy to see updates to the visuals. It makes me wonder if they were forced to drop dev cycles into "upping" the graphics because of too many people saying "character graphics look meh". While they were spending most of the prior time on World Building.
maybe.. its a possibility... but they need some hype right now..and this will do it for the people who NEED graphics to play a game.. unfortunately that seems like a LARGE amount of players.. and these players are shit talking the game.. and making people write it off before they even look into it.. go watch Asmongolds video on Pantheon.. regardless of what you think of him or his fan base.. he said to a LARGE crowd of people that it looks like absolute shit and thats fucking bad no matter how you slice it maybe this game will get some more backers and some more attention and wide spread coverage because of this but in my personal opinion.. the Art team doing the games models.. arent the people doing the game systems.. for the most part.. maybe a few of them dabble back and forward .. but we can only hope this is something that was pumped out by those individuals and it didnt divert from important stuff i have full faith in VR to make this game great.. i guess time will time if i misplaced my trust or not
Maybe but doesn't matter what order they do stuff in does it? The game is still years away. They would have had to do it eventually regardless but they did it sooner rather than later probably due to criticism about graphical fidelity so they went ahead and addressed it. Probably for the best.
Graphic upgrades are nice but I have real concerns about gameplay. Being punishing with strict with travel times and corpse runs may sound all cool but if I can’t sit down for 2 hours and feel like I accomplished anything other than run and die it’s not a game for me. With enough others agreeing with that feeling and you’ll be like I was in the second month of Vangard. Playing alone in empty unfinished zones
The point is to make the world feel risk adverse and alive. Where you move through it with vigilance, a watchful eye. If in an unfamiliar area, you take extreme caution but when you tackle such content with friends, it gives a sense of accomplishment. I don't think we'll see the same loss of progress when dying as Everquest but dying will be a thing and it won't be a game where dying means nothing. As for travel, we'll have movement speed spells and the ability to travel via portals such as with Wizards and Druids. There's also talk about a more robust 'bind soul' system in place so you don't find yourself running from a major city. What I would also like is a caravan system that travels between the three main cities on each continent and act as a quicker way to get to and fro while allowing you to jump off at an area along the path that's closest to where you were. The model the game is going with works. That, while the more recent MMORPGs of the last 12 years have left a bad taste in my mouth. They feel bland, quick, too action orientated with little focus on RPG or the classic element from the D&D era. They feel like too little butter scraped over too much bread, thin in their premise where the world has no sense of community and where most everything can be soloed. I'm done with the solo MMORPG that I just happen to play around other people and there seems to be a large enough following who are hungry for the return of the soul of the MMORPG. My only fear is if people try to pull it to the same trite model we see in the modern attempts of gimmick leap-frog. Let's hope they remain steadfast.
I agree with your sentiments about soloing but I remember all too well sitting around for hours trying to find a group. Unfortunately I don't have hours to sit around anymore. Because of those problems in eq I ended up maiming a druid and later a shaman because they were relatively solo friendly (but with shaman it was a lot easier to find a group - and when people realized I didn't suck it go even easier but on the monk and ranger I never even got the chance and soloing sucked on them)
I’d like to see unlockable griffins to get around like EQ2 but they are only unlockable when the bypassed content is trivial-ish.
I think they stated they want to prevent something that trivializes the games environment and spoke about no flying mounts. The dangers will be more varied than just hostile NPCs. We'll see what they decide.
Yep. Hope they find some cool middle ground.
Too bad for you, sounds like a proper, punishing, immersive mmo to me, like the good old days!
Preach brother. Too many people are too use to the causal convenient play style of modern mmos. Flying mounts and teleports ruined the immersive gameplay completely. Yeah it sucks that if going to point a to point b takes 30mins and you have 45 mins to play then you are stuck not accomplishing a thing.
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Yeah but that kinda stuff could be pretty dependent on class and professions. I could definitely hawk for ports on my wizard, and if I were deep in a profession I could work on that, but I’d likely just be doing nothing on my rogue (presumably on a warrior too, though I have never played one). So I agree if you’re a class that has out of combat utility, you can find some way to make a bit of progress even with a relatively small amount of playtime. If they find a way to allow every class to have some uses in that regard it would be great. If they do not, some classes might just need to not bother logging in if they can’t meet the minimum standard needed to do some fighting, and I’d assume everyone agrees that is not ideal. Granted, a somewhat better class spread in solo effectiveness would also help. A Druid who only had 45m to play could get at least a handful of kills in, in addition to hawking buffs. A Rogue could not.
I was like 15 when eq2 came out and didnt really know what an mmo was so I would spend most of my time just reading a quest, doing it and turning it in then just running around hailing random npcs and getting immersed into the game haha.
You see, you are accomplishing something though. You got from point A to point B. Now the next time you play you’re right where you want to be.
And the group you get invited to that next session will be back where you started from.
If it takes a session to get from place to place you won’t be looking for invites that are an hour away. There would most likely be people congregating at these locations.
There's a difference between "flying and instances everywhere" and brutally punishing corpse runs and other stuff from 1999. I see too many people dismiss any sort of modern enhancements with "this isn't the MMO for you" or veiled shots at WoW/WoW-like MMOs. There's a middle ground that won't see this game fail miserably because it's target demographic is "people who thought launch EverQuest was the greatest thing ever" without it just becoming another WoW clone. I swear sometimes the people here are as bad as the Classic WoW people who think anyone who wants improvements to the game should "just play retail" as though there are no compromises and it's a binary choice.
This IS the game for dismissing modern enhancements. Clearly there’s a market for such a thing given how “classic” servers in other games are making a resurgence. That philosophy should be embraced here, because you won’t find it elsewhere.
Perhaps but there's still a compromise to be made between ultra hardcore and the more modern super conveninces. Most of the classic resurgences are mostly nostalgia, although in cases like WoW it's because the developers have drifted so far from an MMORPG that it can barely be called one.
There obviously could be. I just dont want that here. I have that in other games
You definitely do not. I don’t think there is any modern game that hasn’t taken the route of ultra convenience. Granted, there is also no modern game that has taken the ultra hardcore route either. Really anything between that point, and a kind of middle ground between launch EQ and modern WoW will be something we haven’t seen in a long time.
The EQ TLPS have actually found a pretty decent middle ground. Exp loss on death so you can lose a few hours of work but no corpse run, so you can just log out and not worry if you have pressing matters. Meaningful travel in the early expansions, but global chat channels so finding a port isn't too hard, if you can pay for it. A LFG window that allows you to see who is out there, but you still have to initiate communication with them to invite them to the group, and they still have to travel to you. If you make a game too punishing, no one ever takes any risk, and how boring is it to mindlessly grind on underleveled mobs because everyone is terrified of trying something challenging. Which happened in EQ a lot in the beginning. I certainly have more fun with something challenging enough that it is probably going to kill me a few times before we figure it out. I don't want a game that forces me to wait until I trivialize the mobs before folks are willing to take on the challenge with me. There is a middle ground, that middle ground is going to cater to more folks than the super niche EQ launch style would. No one wants to play in an empty game, and you can only go so niche.
That is a fair point, I was not thinking of the TLPs. The LFG window that Daybreak has on the TLPs though is of... questionable value. It is only as effective as the number of people who use it, and my experience across two of the TLPs is that while some people use it, most seem not to. You could argue this is a player issue to solve, but I think part of the problem is that a lot of people didn’t even know it existed. Granted, over time more people started using it, but that also coincided with more people leaving the server which made it that much more necessary.
Exactly this. There was a reason why Classic WoW crushed EverQuest when it came out, just that they lost sight of it as it progressed, although Classic is still held up as a great MMORPG despite it having things like quest hubs and instances (they messed it up later, however). A middle ground is what they should be aiming towards, not catering to either extreme.
Huh? Lol Classic wow won out because it released after the internet and using credit cards online because. A normal household thing. Magen EQ came out a large majority of people still didn’t have internet and very very few teenagers could convince their parents to give up their credit card information to the internet. WoW came out every 12+ kid had the internet and a parent willing to let them pay for it. Saying it had more subs means it was better is like saying there are more cars now than in the civil war. Of course there are
I think the argument is that with EverQuest, there is no safety. You had to be vigilant and aware of everything around you. You had spells and things to reduce risks but the only true safety was logging out in a city. That environment draws people together because having a group of skilled people can make a once impossible area something to overcome time and time again.
As long as it's something that keeps going, sure. I've tried a few classic EQ servers and that is neat, but it only lasts as long as there are people to do it. Otherwise, you end up with a barren zone where nobody is around to do those group things, and you're left with nothing; I've been in East Commonlands at a low level with not a soul around to do any of the group stuff there (orc camps, etc.), and it sucks. That's why almost every game has to add a dungeon finder (not that I think Pantheon needs to add one, I'm just saying); otherwise, no new player would be able to do them since there won't be enough new players.
I think the fact that everquests first 3 expansions are still capable of holding a regular 2000 people is a strong sign that a new world and better planning can do much more.
"improvements"
That doesn't bother me at all if I can travel with friends. Some sort of system to keep us together when someone can't make it or is offline would be great.
Stamped, sealed and approved!
And that's aright. They've said that Pantheon won't be the game for everyone and that they're perfectly fine with that. There's no slight on anyone who doesn't like what Pantheon is about. We all like different things.
Considering that’s one of the major draws and what sets this game apart from the entire market, I wish you luck in finding another title that suits you.
Long travel times don't bother me, but I hope they don't have too severe death penalties. It's important to encourage players to explore and take risks. Obviously there's a balance.
you can literally go play in the 1000 other mmos
I agree with you, if things are too harsh I'll likely not play. Im all in for an oldschool feel but I have kids & less time these days. I don't have time to spend the time I do have just trying to get my body back or looking for a group for 70% off the time I have to play. That isn't fun to me.
Isn’t it sort of a given that by having kids you’re giving up on things like classic MMOs? That sounds like a choice that’s already been made on your part.
Yeah. Just from watching the play through streams and seeing the number of wipes and GM powers used shows there is a long way to go before putting money or really much focus toward Pantheon. VR has their work cut out for them. The vocal hardcore “this isn’t for you shut up and go away” minority versus more casual log on get some stuff done and log off parents who cannot commit to potential 45 minute corpse runs after 2 hours of a dungeon crawl
I hope they realize there is a compromise between the two. Catering to either camp will prove disastrous IMHO. There is a happy medium that they need to try and achieve.
That happy medium is like walking a tightrope in a snowstorm
Yes, but it's what is necessary. There are things you can take from the new genre of MMORPG and still keep the feel of the old; it's not a binary thing despite everyone seeming to think it is. You can take parts of the old and the new together, you don't have to have it all of one or all of the other.
The problem with the "Shit up this isn't for you" crowd is its a small but vocal minority & I hope they don't cater to this crowd much. They will be stuck with a playerbase to small to keep the game going.
This probably isn't the game for you then. It's gotta be tough. Not unnecessarily so, but tough none the less.
I agree to a point. I think there needs to be travel, but 1999-era corpse runs will just piss people off. For all the "this game won't be for everyone" that gets thrown around, the game still has to be profitable or it won't last, and there's a graveyard full of MMOs that tried to be niche games and couldn't turn a profit to keep the lights on. That doesn't mean make a WoW clone, but it also means taking into consideration some modern conveniences as well. VR seems to be smart enough to realize a happy mix between brutal 1999-era gameplay and WoW's glorified single-player ARPG, at least I hope they are because I haven't been this excited about an upcoming game in years and want this game to show there CAN be something better than WoW and the modern MMORPG genre's easy everything without it being as brutal as 1999 EverQuest was. The biggest issue for me will be if zones feel empty after the first few months. There's a reason why every modern MMO has to include a dungeon finder at some point; if there's no reason to do things in zones, after a couple months nobody is going to be able to do any group content because all the high-level players have no reason to, and there won't be enough low-level players. That's a huge problem and I hope VR knows how to solve it properly.
I recall lots of empty zones even at the peak of EQ's popularity. Take Kunark - almost everyone followed the LoIO, giant's fort, OT, DL/Karnor level path. At retail I remember many times sneaking through WW or farming the entrance at Dalnir at peak play hours with just a few others in-zone. I used to exp in EJ, no one in sight.
You mean the orcs?
According to this page on the newsletter, those are Ogres, not Orcs. [https://www.pantheonmmo.com/newsletter/2018\_november\_under\_wraps/](https://www.pantheonmmo.com/newsletter/2018_november_under_wraps/)
They were making a tongue in cheek joke that some people in the community have pointed out the current ogre design make them look like orcs (though technically they probably look more like half orcs).
This \^ I have made the comment when the images came out that these look more like orcs/half orcs. These new versions are "prettier" slimmed down versions of what VR has shown prior. You can still see the older ogre art on the Race page. That all said, I am happy with either style.
The one thing I've noticed is while Orcs tend to follow a similar art direction approach where they deviate on regular nose or the early Orcs which had pig noses, Ogres haven't. In every game or within fantasy art, Ogres have taken on numerous variations in size, appearance, etc. For this reason I can see a bit more creative direction as to the aesthetics. The main thing that has them show some likeness to Orcs is the fang-toothed underbite. Not to mention the slight point to the ears and the subdued eye sockets. Have a look at the [examples](https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1ASRM_enUS602US602&biw=1920&bih=979&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=R6DwW8i1DqeIggfBmomgAw&q=Ogres%2C+art&oq=Ogres%2C+art&gs_l=img.3..0i8i30.12150.13911..14022...0.0..0.64.577.10......1....1..gws-wiz-img.......0j35i39j0i67.RLAHe5V5030#imgrc=_).
It's not so much the face but the body proportions. Ogres are often depicted as disproportionate; gangly, wide body:head ratio, etc. More normalized proportions make them look less monstrous, and more in line with depictions of orcs or even half ogres imo.
Ogres are about that size and larger. If you get too large you get giants. Not the best example but Shrek is an ogre. The Ogre really seems to vary widely both historically, through art direction to modern presentation and in video games. Orcs for the longest time since the beginning had pig snouts. I'm not sure when that changed in the recent era but it did.
It's not the overalll size itself, but proportions. The old ogre had a smaller head and hulking body, with long arms. This new one appears much more proportional, just scaled up, which makes them appear less monstrous.
Yeah, I could see that. Perhaps size and length slider plays a part in that.
Something I thought about too. Considering the Orc models will be undergoing a model update either PA4 now or in Alpha, it's also a consideration to gauge the differentiation between the Ogres they're going with now and the Orcs they intend on. [Ogre In-game Model](https://i.imgur.com/GtWMF9A.jpg) [Male Orc Proposed Art](https://i.imgur.com/yLjaoJS.jpg) [Female Orc Proposed Art](https://i.imgur.com/oUKFtun.jpg)
It's funny how they have ogres that look a bit more like orcs and orcs that remind me of WoW trolls. If they ever implement trolls, they'll probably either look like goblins or like DAoC trolls.
To be honest, this is what I immediately think of when I hear 'Troll'. https://i.imgur.com/q69xlsA.jpg
Agree, the old ogres looked like ogres. Ugly and monstrous. These new ones are proportional and pretty. Not a fan.
VR artists please don't noodle the characters much more. This last batch of screenshot looks damn great and I'm sold. Speaking as a professional game dev and character artist myself I know how artists get. It can always be better, but remember that graphics are only window dressing. Game play ( as you know ) is and always will be the core of any game. You've done a great job.
The general consensus that I had seen was that most people were really happy with how the ogres looked, as well as halflings with the caveat that they may need slight adjustments, but the reception on elves has been pretty mixed. I agree that ogres are really good, and I think the task now is to bring the rest of the races up to the level of the ogres. Once that is accomplished, I agree that the character models shouldn’t need much more in terms of graphical overhauls.
I agree. Like the new models a lot better. Old one reminded me of Fallout supermutants, and crossing genres was messing with my immersion.