Pantheon

[MadMilitia]

I've been thinking about this since walking away from WoW. Possibly walking away from multiboxing in general. I am really digging the approach Virtual Realms is going with for Pantheon. Especially being an old school EQ 1999 player.

This isn't a thread about multiboxing but really about the kind of game they are making. If it's as stated a return to 1999 form that means few things are possible without coordinating a group. They are also officially stating that instancing will be cut short. Meaning that in very few places they will instance the player where the server needs to (like sharding for WoW) but for most things it's all open world.

I'm reminded of why I started to multibox EQ back then. When it went instanced dungeons and you could just AFK farm a bunch of stuff to level up. Too much convenience ruined the game. People stopped socializing. The communities fell apart.

Obviously there isn't much community in WoW either and personally I'm really sick of the multiboxing tightrope that is "we don't support it but we don't condemn it" where content may or may not be designed to totally screw us.

Thoughts? I'm thinking my first character would be an enchanter.

[MiRai]

I've altered the title of your thread because it was somewhat sensationalist. If you wish to discuss Pantheon and its potential future, then open a thread to discuss Pantheon (which you have), but I'll ask that you please leave the "I'm leaving WoW," and other potential drama to a personal blog post, or separate post entirely, because it tends to detract from the main topic at hand, which should be Pantheon.

Thanks


With that said, I have also been watching Pantheon's development from time to time, since it does sound interesting and they apparently do allow multiboxing. The devs have said no third-party software to "automate" anything, but there is a broad definition of automation, and so I don't think any further clarification has been given at this point.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

This "multiboxing tightrope" thing is going to exist everywhere for the forseeable future, IMO. As soon as a game company tried to "clarify" things with a clearly defined set of rules, someone will try to rules-lawyer themselves into a way to cheat without technically breaking said rules. So, they don't specify and then they can ban you if you're being what they consider toxic or breaking their ROI functions to the point where you pop through their filters.

The question I have about this and other new MMOs is whether they:

* Don't lazily force you to fit a cookie-cutter spec; e.g. off-spec builds that better fit a multiboxer.
* Have a UI that allows me to display lots of data on fight mechanics (target healthbars/castbars/etc.).
* Have animations that "make sense" (aka lends well to Suspension of Disbelief).
* Don't have ridiculous downtime between fights (wipe-recovery excluded).
* Ability to respec abilities/skills reasonably is a must.
* Figure out how to do not mangle PVE balance at the altar of PVP whiners.

I've played others and had some fun in them but I keep coming back to WoW for the usability, UI usefulness and animation/interaction feel.

We'll see how well they execute. They're in pre-alpha so it's hard to make any real judgments yet as my criteria are usually features of more mature engines/systems with the exception of the spec diversity. They said they're fully funded through launch, so that bodes well for longevity.

Hell, if they keep faithful to the no-microtransactions plan, it might be worth supporting them just for that. :P

[MadMilitia]

I should probably clarify what I meant by the tightrope. I meant purely mechanical designs for encounters. Like the issue with questing and sometimes lately far more often being locked to solo progress. Others like some of the Legion and BFA encounters are damn near impossible on a trinity comp. They allow us to do what we do but at any moment design might completely and unintentionally step on us.

Pantheon is putting the trinity back where it should be. Tank / Heal / CC. The one thing that scares me is their budget. I know this isn't the first rodeo for the lead crew (Vanguard being their earlier incarnation of EQ) and they had a lot of problems historically with money. They won't have the budget Blizzard has to throw at Art. So I don't expect that kind of polish.

I miss classic EQ to be frank. The open world, zero instance policy on top of bringing back classic crowd control roles is really getting me interested.

[Apatheist]

No developer is going to actively endorse boxing. Whether it will continue to be tolerated will depend on how much impact it has on other players experience.

In the developer interviews I've read they've stated that there will be an macro system to allow you to assign console commands to hotkeys and I know that there's already an /assist function in-game. Unsure about /follow. I may fork out for a couple of founder accounts if the game still looks promising by the time they move into beta.

One of my complaints about "niche" games like Pantheon or various PvP-centric games that have released over the last decade is that the developers always cave in to the demands of tourists that have no long-term interest in the game to begin with. They develop a game for a niche market, get a bunch of backing from an audience interested in that market and then the game releases and gets flooded with a bunch of tourists who are temporarily bored of WoW or other games. Those players then whine about the game being too difficult or PvP being too harsh, etc. The developers cater to that crowd and start making adjustments and, of course, all the tourists end up going back to the game they came from and the original backers are left with a watered down POS that nobody wanted so they end up unsubscribing too.

I've seen it happened multiple times. Age of Conan is the best example. Hopefully this development team has the nuts to stick with their vision and not cave in to the casuals that won't be there 6 months after release either way.