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Wishlist for Mabinogi Eternity...

LordAgonusLordAgonus
Mabinogi Rep: 1,470
Posts: 18
Member
edited January 28 in Feedback and Suggestions
In bringing Mabinogi to the Unreal engine, I fully support the current efforts to add polish to the game, make combat mechanics smoother and more fluid, increase movement speed, improve weather effects and textures, overarching UI-improvements, etc. I particularly love how natural sitting on chairs and character hairstyles seem so far...It seems like the Eternity development team is doing an amazing job!

My only point of contention is as follows: It seems to me as if the current Mabinogi team quite obviously does not understand the psychology behind *immersion*. IMO *Poulnabrone* was one of the *worst* things that has ever happened to the game. Instant gratification is far from what is needed to contribute to the immersive feeling mabinogi once held.

Compelling players to once again need to travel and "take-in" the vast and beautiful world, not simply port from location-to-location, is one of the hidden keys to this game's long-term longevity. Porting should be limited to mana tunnels and moon gates (and of course insta-porting between dunby and quilla base camp), and in my honest opinion, the number of moon gates should be cut down by roughly 50%.

I would even go so far as to suggest that Mana tunnels should preferably be placed on a timer again...Further, hitching rides with friends and needing to "wait-for-the-bus" as in the case of mana-tunnels on a timer, encourages socialization, one of the key cornerstones of immersion and overarching addictiveness.

"Dead" continents with few reasons to traverse them does the contribute to an immersive feeling. A true "fantasy life"--as older iterations of mabinogi used to be prior to the "poulnabrone"-heresy--needs to feel more like "real life". If I have one wish for mabinogi eternity, it is as follows: "OMG please do not include poulnabrone in mabinogi eternity."

There are other, better ways to encourage players to run dungeons and other older content again, including better drops relevant to the current state of the game and gold rewards that scale with the inflation rate. Hunting field bosses should provide item drops that feel rewarding again. THIS is an example of how to revitalize older content...not simply instant gratification or increased linearity. Wake up, Nexon devs, you're progressively killing your own game with every iteration!

I dearly miss the sense of exploration and adventure, even upon well-worn paths, that only *travelling* confers upon any sandboxy open-world gaming experience. Porting is typically done with prudence in order to preserve this very emotion, and not turn the game into a "port-literally-everywhere-in-one-second experience." Why bother pouring so many development dollars into refinements in the artstyle if no one is forced to enjoy the experience? Further, a slightly slower pace-of-game-life is required to trigger the dopamine rush when in-game actions "feel rewarding" and ensure continued addiction--I mean, nostalgia and loyalty to the game.

Comments

  • nomigid15nomigid15
    Mabinogi Rep: 4,100
    Posts: 270
    Member
    If not outright removed, at least limited/restricted in a way necessitates travel to those places at least once (like how some Moon Gates weren't immediately available on the map, and had to be physically travelled to in order to add them).
  • LordAgonusLordAgonus
    Mabinogi Rep: 1,470
    Posts: 18
    Member
    What I was really going for with this post was for the devs to examine the impact that usual travel during gameplay has on the feeling of immersion in the game...I'm not anti-porting by any means, however, poulnaborne was absolutely heretical, to my mind... :neutral:
  • LordAgonusLordAgonus
    Mabinogi Rep: 1,470
    Posts: 18
    Member
    I feel like, too often, fledgling mmorpg's--let alone a game that has been active for as long as Mabinogi--fail to strike the too-often tenuous balance between porting and needing to travel. While I believe that being able to port to the "central hub" ie. Dunby and Quilla base camp is extremely important, I belong to the subset of players that believes that porting should be used judiciously and with prudence. ...so in other words, to my mind, Poulnabrone is an absolute abomination...