Developers: Take Notice.

The hardcore fan based MMO players in Everquest are always looking for the return to a gret MMO world.

Read this:

http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/a-glimpse-into-the-pantheon-development-process-at-visionary-realms/

It's not always about creating TLP servers or brand new WoW'ish type games.

It should be about updating and polishing the original product with new technology and new game shattering ideas to create a world to which we all can get behind.

Just saying.

From Pantheon Website:

This is what EQ is lacking. Dynamic content. It was a thought way back in the early days of EQ but never came to fruition.

EQNext is supposed to have that, but since that product will likely never see the light of day I agree it'd be cool to implement mechanics like that in an EQ expansion.

Well jeepers, nobody that works on eq knows about pantheon... glad this got put out there so it doesn't sneak up on them.

Sverag and Devestation from the Prophecy of Ro expansion both work similar to this

Wow.

In that case we should call
http://www.tentonhammer.com/
http://www.gamasutra.com/
and http://www.deviantart.com/

to their attention too.

Oh, don't forget Trogdor the Burninator. Hardcore EQ fans like big bad bosses.

Games promise and try a lot of things that don't always work out. I recall Ultima Online has a complex ecology system in place initially... you killed a lot of creature x in an area and it had consequences... turned out though that players tended to kill everything so fast the system never worked and got scrapped.

Be nice to see a game that did allow for a changing ecology though maybe the tech has finally caught up enough to successfully do it.

While I would love to see a TRUE EQ sequel I am not sure we should hold our breath for it.

I'd put EQNext as more likely to be released, and more likely to be closer to promises than Pantheon.

EQN is stuck in dev hell forever. Pantheon is more along of the lines of "what's the least amount of money and effort we need to spend to get enough investor money to keep brad stocked with food and drugs until the next time he can promise to bring back the greatness of classic EQ?"

Putting your hopes on anything involving Brad McQuaid is pretty worthless.

I got suspended for posting about it! So yeah.

Lila said:

I am not sure you would want to bet the farm on that one Lila.

EQNext Last Post on their front page was 150 days ago talking about EQ Landmark. The last workshop post was 157 days ago on their front page.

Now granted there may be some line items on their forums but that much stretch between official communiques does not inspire much confidence in an end product coming to market any time soon.

And your ensuing comments about Brad McQuaid seems to me that the scope of this project touched on a sore subject with you. So either you have inside knowledge about his proclivities or just want to disparage somebody's image to suit your misguided fantasies about MMO Development.

My original intent wasn't to bolster some other game but rather just put it out there that DBG needs to pay more attention to its subscribers.

As to whether or not Pantheon will come to light or not is a wait and see situation. Does it mean I will sunset EQ in favor of Pantheon. Probably not. But it does offer a glimmer of hope in this Die-Hard MMO players heart to hope that the next stage of EQ might be coming to realization in one way shape or form.

To date, we as a subscriber base haven't been given much confidence in the future of EQ and the world we helped build.

Not part of your "we" and when the next expansion is launched in November we will see these posts start up again. Like last year and the years before. And anyone that read my "jeepers" post and didn't see it as sarcasm needs to read more carefully.

I'm pretty sure everyone got it.

The point (your point) is that people who work for a game company, especially developers/designers/marketers, follow industry news. While the website mentioned by the OP is not necessarily one of the top 10 "everybody" reads, what's going on with Pantheon and Brad McQuaid isn't very likely to be unnoticed.

Heck, I imagine some of the devs know Brad McQuaid and chew the fat with him occasionally.

Dynamic content dies quickly.

I used to play a game called Rift, which was focused around "Rifts," dynamic events of various types that'd encourage people to stop questing (which is almost always solo in post-WOW MMO's) to team up and beat the Rift. When you'd go to the rift, it'd automatically group you with the people there, and they could drop gear and gave out currency upon completion.

People did Rifts for maybe the first two months, then people pretty much stopped doing stopped doing the non-raid Rifts.

The biggest issue I see with Pantheon is the current community of MMORPG games.

Pantheon could be the best game ever made in the history of the world but since it forces grouping the current community of MMORPGs will inevitably kill the game. The idea of everyone working together sounds great on paper but in reality in today's modern market getting people to get along and work together is nearly impossible. Especially if PvP is involved.

Take it one step further, in addition to the rifts which affect a small area, they also have invasions which pretty much take over whole zones with game-wide notifications that the invasions are happening etc. These change the majority of the zone in which they occur during the event, but like rifts, people rarely do them anymore. The first few time(s) you participate in one they feel very dynamic and almost game-defining and genre-breaking, but they get old really fast once you have seen the script.

Truly dynamic content has to be run by people and/or be procedurally generated. No large studio has succeeded doing this beyond the occasional GM style event....yet, not sure how anyone can expect a small team to pull this off.

Nail on the head.