Rofl... EQN is dead, and Pantheon is alive?

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by Adolphus [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The world is upside down. Looking more and more like Quaid and his team is actually producing something good, somehow. http://www.pantheonmmo.com/

Meanwhile, Smedley's Disney-World-Minecraft-Everquest is dead as a door nail. Good riddance to that garbage.

Color me more than a little surprised at this twist of fate. Smedley destroyed, McQuaid potentially victorious? I put this is on the same level as Bruce Jenner turning out to be a woman inside.

It's not done deal. These things can die easy. Don't get your hopes up. Mine are low. Remember Vanguard? Didn't do so well. Odds are this one will be dead out of the water. Even if it survives, it'll probably be half dead.

I watch from a distance. I admit, I only care because I was one of the first players on live in march 99. If I'd never picked up the Everquest box in the store I would probably be watching Camelot Unchained and Richard Garriot. I did pick up the UO: Second Age box, but that was long after McQuaid had stolen my soul. Garriot--for his sake--has a solid grip on me anyway.

I've always wondered if my attraction to Everquest gameplay is rooted in nostalgia or some kind of hardened attachment. You know how old people are attached to old things and can't readily adopt new things? Like that.

But I think a lot of hte people following Pantheon will be disappointed when they find out it's not Everquest or Vanguard. It might have some similar traits, but it'll be much more modern. They will have to adjust. I of course have witnessed changes in MMO's since I first played EQ, so I EXPECT it. I think me knowing this actually makes it easier for me to accept whatever Pantheon becomes. And yet I also know this is McQuaid and he won't be making Hello Kitties. So to some extent expectations are appropriate. When McQuaid says he wants to make for a Core or Hardcore audience, he generally means it, even if it's a slippy slope in those parts and things will trend towards Casual like water goes downhill...

Here's a thing by Bartle from 2004:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/featur...orlds_are_.php

What Dickens was actually saying is that, so long as you don't lose more than you gain, things are good. In our particular case, we're not talking olde English money, we're talking newbies, although ultimately, the two amount to one and the same thing.

Now I'm sorry to be the bringer of bad news, people, but here goes anyway: even for the most compelling of virtual worlds, players will eventually leave. Don't blame me, I didn't invent reality.

If oldbies leave, newbies are needed to replace them. The newbies must arrive at the same rate (or better) that the oldbies leave; otherwise, the population of the virtual world will decline until eventually no-one will be left to play it.

Point #1: Virtual worlds live or die by their ability to attract newbies

Point #2: Newbies won't play a virtual world that has a major feature they don't like.

Point #3: Players judge all virtual worlds as a reflection of the one they first got into.

Point #4: Many players will think some poor design choices are good.

Conclusion

Virtual worlds are under evolutionary pressure to promote design features that, while not exactly bad, are nevertheless poor. Each succeeding generation absorbs these into the virtual world paradigm, and introduces new poor features for the next generation to take on board. The result is that virtual world design follows a downward path of not-quite-good-enough, leading ultimately to an erosion of what virtual worlds are.

Fortunately, there are a number of processes at work that have the potential to arrest this descent. Thus, although the future of virtual worlds may look disappointing, it's not completely bleak.

Besides, for the purist there will always be text MUDs.