Important: The Future of Pangaea

[Cyrus Tegyr]

Well back to the topic at hand:
Before I begin, I need to point out again, Pangaea is not even using the latest POL core, the last update to POL 097 was around September 2008, you can't seriously compare something 6 years old (while there is an update to it just our scripters couldn't be bothered to update to it cause it is a hefty project) to the current RunUO version, it's apples to oranges.

First off, yes RunUO as I said in a previous post uses the C# language

Second, I think most people including the staff realize this would not be as easy as 1 2 3, but everything can come in steps, the first being the class system rescripted for RunUO and the nice thing with it is that any fixes or problems with the class system can be re-examined and put in without the whole of the playerbase bitching about changes and same goes for any other major pkgs *coughs* religion pkg *coughs*

Now, the one thing we need to know as players and possibly staff who may not know this, if someone wanted to undertake the task and we remain with POL, we ought to consider upgrading to POL 099, it improves upon the 097 core we are using, offers much more then pol 097 does such as the potential to have improved combat where based on the position of the attacker vs the opponent, the attacker could have potential bonuses scripted in such as flanking moves and similar for the opponent could have bonuses if for instance attacked head on such as increased blockablity or dodge stuff, just an example of things that comes in the 099 core.

The thing I like starting anew though even though it would be a monumental task even in baby steps is, systems can be re-evaluated and scripted to fix major issues or flaws we have with out current systems that can't be rescripted because god forbid someone should feel like they are being nerfed.

edit: lol 4 people voted to shut it down

[Chivay]

a) We don't have enough player base for 4 religions.

Religions don't have to be factions. Have Esuna and Winchester be major deities who have allied with factions (Imperial and Law) to further their goal, and have a bunch of minor deities alongside.

How minor deities would work:
- No temple, no headpriest, no colors
- Priests, monks, knights and rangers could start worshiping the deity by clicking the deity's altar, or by getting indoctrinated by a follower of that deity
- Piety capped at 20-30
- Tomes substantially weaker than Law or Imperial
- Followers could join other guilds

This way the piety classes wouldn't be designated for PvP only, and the shard would have more variety.

[Glarundis]

if cirius can spend 40h/week in this game (lol), why did he leave in the first place?

[Ricardus]

I believe in the current core. Pang is POL, POL is Pang. That's what you're all used to, that's what you all should love (and hate). The fact is that the shard has been running on POL since day one, it's something that shouldn't be changed, it's the identity of Pangaea. That's right, we're an old school hipster shard with a nostalgic twist. POL98 would be nice, but it's not mandatory. Therefore the plan is simple.

• 1) Boris takes control. He'll be online 40-50h a week.
  2) Every staff member is sacked, Irming and Neon sticks. Owners gonna own. Ares works as sidekick - once-a-week type scripter.
  3) New GM's will be recruited with time.
  4) Be kind, rewind (rules, some updates, retarded religions changes).
  5) This is a hardcore shard for hardcore players. It's hard. No shit. That's the identity of Pang.
  6) One land, 2 religions. Law and Imperial, battling for that 1 land.
  7) Fresh start. Complete wipe. That's right, say goodbye to your ancient characters, indies and billions.
  8) Final class fixes, identical tomes.
  9) It's 2007 again with improved features, this is the shit.
  10) Dick mode activate.

a) We don't have enough player base for 4 religions. Not since 2006-2007.
b) Nature and Tekstone are nice - but they don't work as good as Law and Imperial.
c) Law and Imperial have a (soon to be) working siege/mayor system. When it's bulletproof, it's the shit.
d) is silent.
e) PvP brings activity to the shard. Some may like it, some may not. It's still the truth.
f) Just imagine those massive fights with 20-30 dudes on each side battling for fame and fortune.
g) Just imagine those massive fights that are fair and PvP is actually based on skill.
h) Players outside from all the religion shit are safe from whine and grief. You do what you like. PvM, HCRP. Whatever.
i) This is Bangaea. Once again.

I agree with most of it, except the chars wipe as mentioned at number 7 (unless all agree with that or if it realy has to be that way). I agree it's time for a real change on pang, fresh start for all.

[Ricardus]

if cirius can spend 40h/week in this game (lol), why did he leave in the first place?

(...)Boris quit because he wanted to and felt he didn't work well with some staff.(...)

[Edward Sinclair]

I think it's pretty obvious from the poll that no one wants Pang to shut down... But I also think that financial issues shouldn't be much of a problem especially considering that we have half a years of funding and little to no effort was placed in receiving those fundings? If a bit more was done I'm pretty certain you'd get a year's worth of funding, there's always a way- Pang isn't some ordinary game you know, it pulls on the heart strings of some of us, and that can be exploited!

I'm not sure what I would pick, another POL guy, or transfer Pang from POL to RunUO. I think what would make people give a more informed choice, is if they're given information about the differences between the two, pros, cons, what would make Pang more stable for the future.

[Mike]

I think it's pretty obvious from the poll that no one wants Pang to shut down... But I also think that financial issues shouldn't be much of a problem especially considering that we have half a years of funding and little to no effort was placed in receiving those fundings? If a bit more was done I'm pretty certain you'd get a year's worth of funding, there's always a way- Pang isn't some ordinary game you know, it pulls on the heart strings of some of us, and that can be exploited!

I actually think Boris sunk a lot of money into it.

[Iktomi]

Not sure what made Boris change his mind, only a few months ago he was talking about trying to build a RunUO version of Pangaea...

Anyway though, if he wants to come back and keep running us on POL, I got no issue. Obviously though, we'd have to consider whether it was worthwhile to go ahead with the RunUO project if there's the prospect of splitting the shard between the POL and RunUO versions (which we really don't have the player base for).

Over the next few days, we'll be doing a better assessment of what the mandatory initial changes will be for the RunUO shard, what stuff we'd be losing and what stuff we'd be gaining (just at the start). Then we can provide a better time estimate, success probability, etc.

[Ares]

Hey guys,

hope you don't mind me sharing my opinions, this will also explain why it was time for me to retire. I hope you'll forgive me but this will be a wall of text of Darian'esque proportions, so I've broken it down:

1. The core
2. The game
3. My attitude towards Pangaea as a game
4. The future

The core

The core is just the first issue (we're running POL96 Cyrus, and the latest version is 99 actually), 11+ years and loads of scripters on an outdated base means it's pretty messy by now.

It's just more painfull to work with than it needs to be. No built-in functionality for basic stuff, like gumps for example. You have to use a library written by some other dude a long time ago patched by a 3rd guy and it only does a semi-decent job. That's why updating all the crafting gumps would be a lot of work for example. There's just no easy way of doing things. Not to mention core issues like bad packet handling etc.
Or, remember how we talked about quivers impacting shooting speed for archery? Not possible either. We've run into other things that are impossible, or needs to work certain ways because of core bugs and so on.

An updated platform would mean a lot for Pangaea. We could do a lot of things that are completely unthinkable now. Create realms on the fly? No sweat. Create instance dungeons? Easy squeasy. And so on.

There's been some good examples, like the Justin Timberlake one. Compare it to putting a man on the moon with 1969 technology vs todays. It's possible with both but the old technology means a whole lot more work and a lot more that can go wrong.. And after a while, you can't help but think about if all this extra work isn't just a waste of your time when you know 10 times the amount of work could be done in the same amount of time, a lot better and a lot safer, with updated technology.

The game

Pangaea itself is outdated.

This is where my second issue is.

Neon/Irming does not allow us to touch fundamental parts of Pangaea. The recent small class changes were a dangerous area to touch for us.
And a lot of the old players strongly oppose changes.
I understand them though, of course. Keep Pangaea, Pangaea.

Then there's PVP system. It brings so much drama, and that's good to some extent. But it needs some strong staffmember to monitor it like we've seen the past months, and it leaves far too much room for interpretation, bias and griefing/abuse.

Thirdly is the skillgains. By today's standards, training a character enough to have fun and to start challenging the world is intolerably slow. We have macroing, which is a necessary evil. Why do we have this functionality? Macro for a week, then have fun. I agree progression should be relatively slow, yes, but also fun and rewarding. Macroing and the current skillgain system is neither. There are a few exceptions of course, like taming, where you travel the world and actually play the game, and once in a rare while you even interact with other players. Though far from optimal.

All this makes for a stale shard in my opinion. That's great if you just want Pangaea to be Pangaea, but not if you want progression and development of Pangaea as a game.

My attitude towards Pangaea as a game

The stance on changes is very conservative these days. There's this persistant claim that the Pangaea Repsak built is the one true game, and the shard should never veer too far from that path.

People are complaining about lack of things to do, yet resist change.

Attracting new players is becoming harder and harder. Who wants to play an ancient game with ancient mechanics. If there's no progression you'll end up with a 5 man playerbase circlejerking over the “real” Pangaea.

I'd like to experiment with some major changes that we've been discussing now and again, which aren't possible atm. for various reasons.
Like guilds being able to be religions, picking which rites you want in your tome yourself, class specializations (mage → battlemage or conjurer for example), Piety being a lot more flexible and systemize it so you earn it yourself, not based on time or GM approval, new realms, to hell with the claim that we don't have a playerbase to support it, and so on, and so on..

But a lot of this stuff requires a change in both philosophy and technology.

I think Boris is the perfect man to continue Pangaea as it is. There's no doubt about that.
But after all this time, it's all a little worn and a little old to me. The game, the mechanics, the AI, the philosophy etc.

That's why I decided it was time to quit, working on stuff had become a chore. It wasn't fun anymore. The old codebase makes it a pain and makes sure there are always bugs, the philosophy means there's not a lot of room for experimentation or major changes, the old guys (all respect intended) and the conservative philosphy means it feels like I'm working on someone else's project that I don't fully agree with anymore and there are always complaints over something or people disagreeing passionately. I had a hard time seeing a big future for Pangaea the game.

The future

I don't think it'd be possible to port Pangaea to either the latest POL version or to a RunUO version. The codebase is just too large and it would be a massive effort. Kevin and I started a POL99 port a long time ago, but there's just so much work that we'd have to work 3 months straight on it so it just never got very far as other things took presedence.

I don't have any plans about anything, but I think it could be interesting to start a new RunUO project. Not Pangaea 2.0 – But a new shard based on the spirit of Pangaea (like Pangaea was based on JE).
I think the key to succeeding with something like that would be to say: we don't port Pangaea, we start a new shard from the ground up and start with what's important. The class system, the guild/religion system, the skills etc.
And we launch right away.

We could even make it open source. That means that everyone contributes as much or as little as they want. To the code, to the lore, the rules etc. All you need to do is to change a file and submit a pull request, which will be reviewed by a staffmember and either accepted or rejected with the push of a button.

Found a bug on the townstone, know what causes it and know a little about scripting? Fix it and submit a pull request. Found a flaw in the lore? Rewrite it and submit it.
It would work sort of like the Wiki, but curated.

A flexible open-spirited, technologically modern shard. Which doesn't cling to an unchangeable core and philosophy.

All these are just my personal opinions, I don't mean to upset anyone and I've written everything with the deepest respect for everyone and Pangaea. I love the shard just as much as everyone here, and will probably be back to train a new char in a year or so as tradition commands it, but for me personally as a game developer, it's time for progress.

[Palma]

Everything you said makes total sense. If I could vote, I would vote on a new RunUO shard where people can transfer their characters and skills from here to there (with a new name if they wanted), and start fresh on an island surrounded by walls where the World was conquered by Dennac... and develop from there. New pvp system, new RP system, inifinite possibilities for scripting, etc etc.

Something like resident evil's last scene (men's last stand):



Then slowly build our way out of there.

This of course would mean a more up to date way of PVM and PVP of course, but hey! That's the thrilling part! The discovering of shit!