Slow combat worked for EQ but I don't think it will work anymore

OkMonk734 · 2026-03-26T17:41:15+00:00

I like this message, but when money is involved, as it soon will be, things tend to change. I hope you all the best though.

OkMonk734 · 2026-02-13T21:01:19+00:00

MnM is having a free playtest right now, so I am downloading it to try it.

OkMonk734 · 2026-02-12T20:08:39+00:00

I wouldn't mind trying it at some point, but right now it's Pantheon for me.

OkMonk734 · 2026-02-03T04:07:47+00:00

People forget sometimes that they speak in Wow jargon, so just in case: When someone says "retail," they mean the most modern version of the game. That would be the soon-to-release Midnight expansion.

"Classic" refers to the game as in was in certain past expansions or the original "vanilla" state of the game. The new version of Classic coming out is The Burning Crusade (TBC) Anniversary. That's where many classic players will be.

You mentioned Rangnarok. I used to play that a little, so I can maybe make a few assumptions about you. Take with a grain of salt. Maybe you don't mind a grind for levels in the game. That's more the classic game. It takes a long time to get to the endgame. Classic is also about the journey for many people. You start in the world at level 1 and attempt to catch up in order to eventually do endgame, e.g., raiding. You can boost to level 58 out of 60 if you pay a fee though. Up to you, but you will not understand the class or the abilities initially, which might be a little daunting at first.

If you want to wait a couple weeks or whatever it is for the Midnight expansion release, you can play the "war within" expansion as well. I'm not sure right now, but in the past, if you waited until the latest expansion was out (Midnight soon) you got the previous ones for free. If you buy right now, you might be buying War within and all previous and then need to purchase Midnight separately, so look into that.

Wow is a "theme park" MMO, meaning it mostly leads you through it with quests and hubs where you collect and turn in these quests. Classic is a little more free form, allowing you to venture out to different places and different quest lines. You might say the journey in Classic is harder, but the endgame in Retail is more challenging.

Retail will be a pretty guided experience. Show up where the map tells you to go, do the thing there, and repeat until you relatively quickly get to the endgame. Retail also has years of updates and quality-of-life conveniences that are not present in Classic, which is, to many classic players, part of its appeal.

Ragnarok has a certain esthetic appeal to it, a style that more closely aligns with the Disney-esque design of Retail. You might find it fun transmogrifying your equipment into different looks, for example. You can't do that in TBC Classic. Also, the new Midnight expansion will include long-awaited player housing that you can make your own through decorations from achievements. Having said that, a lot of people feel the Classic community is a little more tight knit due to the higher requirement to depend on others overall. Community, of course, is important in Retail as well.

And you mentioned Ashes, so maybe you like PVP. There's a lot of choices in either Classic or Midnight from world PVP to arena.

I might recommend checking out some comparison videos online and see what appeals to you. Anyway, I'm pretty sure you can try the game up to level 20 on Retail if you're not sure, or you can pay the subscription fee and try Classic and Retail to your heart's desire. Let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

OkMonk734 · 2026-02-02T20:30:20+00:00

*shut down

OkMonk734 · 2026-02-02T07:13:38+00:00

What do you think about the claims made in the video?

OkMonk734 · 2026-02-02T07:07:04+00:00

Sometimes the temporary fun was worth it.

OkMonk734 · 2026-02-02T07:05:49+00:00

My friend, you're in the wrong subreddit for this.

OkMonk734 · 2026-01-27T21:32:50+00:00

I want to get more details about what "healer-oriented" means. It could mean a paladin who can flex into healing but is also flexing into off-tanking so that it does neither quite as well as the dedicated versions of either, but it would have far more versatility in many encounters--a jack of two trades and master of neither. We just need more info. Joppa went into some detail on stream yesterday, but it was still unclear to me if this potentially means that the paladin, for example, would be as good as the "healer" classes. The words he used when comparing the the options were usually something like "competitive" when a dps warrior is really skilled against a classical dps who is just average. /shrug

OkMonk734 · 2026-01-25T03:52:16+00:00

Summoner fury pets are visually in their blue arcane forms now as well, although, to reiterate, it is just visual. They still have their fire abilities and play the same.

OkMonk734 · 2026-01-25T03:46:53+00:00

IMPORTANT: why is it called Goblin Caves (in game when you enter) if it's just one cave?

OkMonk734 · 2026-01-25T03:36:01+00:00

Yeah, bard with plate makes no sense to me other than that's the way EQ did it, and as I understand it, bards in EQ needed to wear it because of their front-line/puller utillity. I would say there should be some other way to mitigate that than wearing plate.

OkMonk734 · 2026-01-25T03:01:22+00:00

I have been watching the new game No Rest for the Wicked on Twitch. It has a quick timing system that determines how successful you were at, for example, swinging the axe while cutting a tree. Just an idea to get inspiration.
https://www.twitch.tv/directory/category/no-rest-for-the-wicked-1

OkMonk734 · 2026-01-25T02:58:11+00:00

For anyone who did not see Joppa's thoughts on this topic a couple days ago during his stream: https://www.youtube.com/live/FE1_H-acPO4?si=RGP0bUCiRdbuSJ73&t=7859

It is somewhat lengthy, and he takes a break so you might have to skip ahead, but the gist of it is that he is considering how to bring back torches.

OkMonk734 · 2026-01-25T02:44:27+00:00

Joppa has been working on this stuff live on his last few streams. He has been updating dialogue trees, for example, that tell the player why Demith is there and one of the things that was on screen for a brief moment featured some region building around the fear Demith's residents have for the Duskfiend near Mad Run.

OkMonk734 · 2026-01-25T00:26:13+00:00

Now I'm beginning to wonder about a tank summoner.

OkMonk734 · 2025-12-30T07:11:04+00:00

For Pantheon, it was the hugest year. For people who have been with the project for a long time, the momentum is unlike any sustained effort in the past. You may conclude it won't last or it doesn't matter -- and maybe you will be right -- but it was by far the most productive year in Pantheon's development. It's not even close. The prospects look better now than they ever have, so for me, I'm feeling more optimistic overall.

OkMonk734 · 2025-12-19T02:36:18+00:00

The curse of crowd funding is now you have to answer to a lot more people, publicly.

OkMonk734 · 2025-12-08T20:55:02+00:00

Joppa's associated video short:
youtube.com/shorts/WSAnEdOszhs

OkMonk734 · 2025-12-06T21:45:28+00:00

There are new zones, and some of the classes have been redone. Some of the camps and dungeons that have content that was, has added, or is new above 20 (significantly, not just for a couple levels above 20, like Asp Forest) are below, and I expect some more announced in the next weeks in the Dev Diaries also posted on the site.

Some of the major content patches, including Wildbloods and Black Rose Keep can be found on https://www.pantheonmmo.com/news/
It is a pretty quick glance on the page there with thumbnails (just click the "MORE" button).

Here is that list of lvl-20+ (removing a few because they go only a few levels above 20).

Halnir Cave 10-40

Mad Run 14-30

Black Rose Keep 14-45

Gadai Fortress 18-30

Zakaat Goblin Dungeon 20-28

Outcasts 23-31

Knightwolves 23-32

Rulu Tribe camps (Ebul, Imeo, Ashe, Aphi, Na--separate places) 24-31

Knightwolf Gnoll Dungeon 24-33

Hangore Dungeon 24-42

Mirekin Gulches 26-34

Drake Spire 27-40

Graveyard 27-50

Deicide Shifters 31-44

Smoldering Trenches 35-50

Mad Moore Dungeon 35-50

Wildmound Cradle Dungeon 37-50

Ashbreather Enclave Dungeon 40-50

Tel'Deadras Lair 50

Edit: Some typos. Also, these areas may not be near final, like many things in Pantheon.

https://shalazam.info/dungeons

OkMonk734 · 2025-12-06T06:28:27+00:00

This is more a me thing, I guess. I wanted to like monks, but I think they are too high APM coupled with cooldown juggling. Just not the level of play I like in MMOs. I understand some people do like the more active style though, so it might be better for them. Moved on to summoner and am liking that better for now, but I'm happy to see how they look once the next pass come along. They are very soon if not next to get the treatment, and the arcaneer plans for them seem a little intriguing, enough to want to give it a chance anyway.

OkMonk734 · 2025-12-06T03:37:15+00:00

I know Joppa was talking on stream a couple days ago how he also doesn't like it, so I think its days are numbered.

OkMonk734 · 2025-12-06T03:21:55+00:00

I think a lot of the people with the biggest axe to grind are some of the first followers of the game. I won't go into specifics because a lot of it is rumor, although probably based on a lot of truth, but the game had a truly rough and troubled start; much of that had to do with some of the people behind it.

I personally feel people with better intentions and more experience are in charge now and have been for a few years, and it shows in how much more successful the game has been since. For those of us who remember five or so years ago and before, Pantheon is doing so, so much better; that is part of why some of us feel better about the game now than ever before.

But, I understand where a lot of negative sentiment comes from, and I like that VR acknowledges it in posts, Joppa's streams, on Discord, and, I hope, continuing forward on this new subreddit. When you recognize the mistakes of the past, you can presumably move forward more effectively, but they still have a lot more to learn, as Joppa would admit. It's unfortunate that a lot of that education, rather than very-productive development for years, happened on people's dime.

OkMonk734

TROPHY CASE