goishen
Macho Ma'am
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Oh man. You gotta know a fool and his money will soon be parted with this bullshit. Actually, make that a millennial/GenZ.
Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO
- Thread starter gogojira_sl
- Start date
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Oh man. You gotta know a fool and his money will soon be parted with this bullshit. Actually, make that a millennial/GenZ.
Mat'hir Uth Gan
Trakanon Raider
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It's written a little poorly, but what he meant is that if you upgrade your pledge past the $250 tier (the lifetime sub KS tier), you can get the modern pledges and awards that come with them while keeping the lifetime sub as well. You don't have to actually pay more just to continue to keep that lifetime sub perk.
goishen
Macho Ma'am
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Actually, that would get rid of our other problem. Epic games store. Brad would snort up his Oxy so fast that all that money would just fly up nose.
Two birds, one stone.
Fucker
Log Wizard
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Hateyou
Not Great, Not Terrible
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yamikazo
Trakanon Raider
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There's every reason not to be.
The project as a whole hasn't grown in years. The "actual team" is made up of laid off castaways working for peanuts because the games industry is firing dead weight and moving their workforce out of Southern California. Brad is a horrible name to attach to a project. Chris Perkins has never produced a game and hasn't shown any results getting Pantheon done.
Their last zone reveal was in 2015. I'd hope they have new zones or a city to show eventually. Their animations, character models, and VFX are finally being "upgraded" from the free Unity Asset Store. Great. Remind me how many artists have been "working" for the team and for how long?
I can't wait for the official reveals of Summoner of Druid that will be copy/pasta'd from EQ1 and Vanguard but took this amazing and growing dev team months to put out to their community who is blindly throwing blank checks at this project.
Anyone who has optimism in this project is high on hopium. Of course as long as fools keep giving them money there's a chance to turn things around, but you're delusional.
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She'll wind up being one of those shitty people that work in a retirement home and abuse/steal from the residents.
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Pharone
Trakanon Raider
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Well the recent monthly newsletter sums it up. In FIVE YEARS, they have managed to make 2 zones and 1 raid. The new zone is still not "ready to show the public" as they say, and nobody has seen this so called raid.
The best part, they added even more ways for you to pledge... ahem... give them money because they still need more funding.
Oh but wait... they showed some more concept art right? Yeah... they showed a few drawings. How long did it take their "artist" to draw those on a napkin.
Seriously. Anybody that doesn't realize this is nothing more than smoke and mirrors to milk money out of the stupid is 100% delusional at this point.
Pantheon is a scam that is living on purchased assets and the legacy of a scam artist that got lucky with EverQuest.
This thread should be rickshawed rather than giving the scammer any credibility what so ever.
The best part, they added even more ways for you to pledge... ahem... give them money because they still need more funding.
Oh but wait... they showed some more concept art right? Yeah... they showed a few drawings. How long did it take their "artist" to draw those on a napkin.
Seriously. Anybody that doesn't realize this is nothing more than smoke and mirrors to milk money out of the stupid is 100% delusional at this point.
Pantheon is a scam that is living on purchased assets and the legacy of a scam artist that got lucky with EverQuest.
This thread should be rickshawed rather than giving the scammer any credibility what so ever.
Mat'hir Uth Gan
Trakanon Raider
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It hasn't been five years. Chris took over in 2016. 3 years. And I'm sure the beginning of that time period wasn't ideal as they still largely had a rag tag group of volunteers but mostly no actual employees, so the team had to be formed and weeded out. In interviews, Chris and Kilsin have said they scrapped the entire game except the lore and started over. That occurred in 2016 at some point before July. Brad hasn't been utilized in day to day activities outside marketing since before that point in time. And if you listen to any of the interviews in the last two years, Brad tends to say something, and then Chris has to correct the record that what Brad said is mostly incorrect. Once the project died, Brad seems to have agreed to let others resuscitate it while largely staying out of the way. He continues to try and hype it from time to time though.
Before Chris took over, it was fuzzy trolls, napkin art, and a dead game. In the three years since, the growth and production has been significant. They've also said that due to technology, one zone in Pantheon is equivalent to 4 or 5 zones in EQ. The size and scope of Faerthale (the zone) alone is going to be bigger than all the Karanas put together. Yeah, it's one zone, but you can likely go from 1 to 40 within those content pockets. Avendyr's Pass and Thronefast are massive "zones" as well. Halnir's Cave and Black Rose Keep are moderately sized dungeons. Amberfaet is a very large raid dungeon. Tower of the Reckless Magician is a large dungeon. South Saol Peninsula and Wild's End are large outdoor "zones". All of those zones have been shown to the public along with the Union of Shadow zone. Counting Faerthale, which was in PA4, that's 10 zones they've shown publicly. They've also talked about working on the Roan Mountains which is probably the next zone after Faerthale we see, and that should house the Silent Sanctum dungeon.
On top of those 10 zones, they've created the character models for all the races, both male and female, with the final three (Dark Myr, Archai, and Skar) possibly going in as early as this next update. All the classes are now in the game and functioning. The perception system is in game. Climbing is fleshed out and in game. Animations are now being worked on by Ross Armstrong, who is by no means a scrub hire. They still have the Unity team of engineers doing their part to improve the engine and optimize it. I see a lot of positives in the last three years, with most of that coming in the last 1.5 years, but this next update has to deliver.
If this is a scam, and it very well might have started out as one, they sure aren't acting like it now. I think people need to separate the Brad McQuaid/Silas/Fuzzy Troll Pantheon of 2014-2016, and the reboot Chris Perkins era from 2016-Present. One of those had very little work to show, one has quite a bit. I'm still optimistic. In my view, and from what I understand, Chris has had two years of a semi-functional team to get the project back up off the ground and running. If that's true, they've done pretty well in that time. And they just hired their animator and VFX guy this year, so it hasn't been a full MMO team until recently, if even yet. The game and development are moving in the right direction, but only if you understand when development of this version of the game actually started.
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yerm
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Sure, its gotten better. Sure, its finally shown progress. The problem is that there is a huge disparity between doing something and doing even the minimal amount necessary to be successful.
I am convinced that at least the majority (if not all) of the staff are fundamentally lazy. They aren't setting goals and achieving them. They aren't working within deadlines. They aren't planning at all it seems. They are just plugging away at what they feel like, punching a timecard or whatever, and even cherry picking just they want instead of concluding modules or features in full they STILL fail hard at producing consistent output to be demo'd.
In programming, the 80/20 rule is very alive and well and probably multiplied. A good developer just puts out literally many times the work of a merely decent one. A mediocre developer put into a difficult project can be downright counterproductive.
From everything I see, read, and hear... I am left with little doubt that Pantheon is a bunch of mediocre programmers and average animators and worthless project managers, and nobody who might fit into that 20% who do 80% bucket. Pantheon is a jobs program for the people who weren't good enough to make it at a company with real funding, and these uninspired (pathetic) updates are the proof.
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goishen
Macho Ma'am
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Fyff
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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How do we know they aren't setting goals? Rarely if ever do game companies tell the public their goals.
I'm not saying you're wrong, I haven't followed it close enough to know if they set public goals or not.
Mat'hir Uth Gan
Trakanon Raider
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I buy into the its only been two years of stable production theory. Maybe leasing Unity shaves a year or two off. Industry standard is 5-7 years for an MMO. I think it will be 3-5 more years. If they partner with a publisher and hire some junior animators and extra artists, it could speed things up. Theoretically, once they get the in-game systems polished, which they are working on now, the world building should speed up considerably. Regardless, there is a lot more finished that has been shown publicly than some folks are giving them credit for. And again, I think you go back two years, read those newsletters and see what has been done within that time frame to get a feel for how the team has grown and the game has progressed. Anything before that, I agree, was bad and mismanaged and probably deserves ridicule.
Fight
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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I liked the good old days, when an individual or a small group of friends had an idea they were passionate about. So, they started working on the project and got it to a point where they secretly showed it to a studio. The studio got on board with them and gave them some additional resources and a plan for marketing & distribution. They kept working on it, behind closed doors, to the point it was 6 months or a year from release. Then, they started showing previews, going to shows, popping up in media, and maybe they would release a beta test. Finally, they launched a full-fledged product and reaped the rewards of their hard work and dedication to their project.
Now, jackass' with half-baked ideas, a pen, and a napkin get to go on kickstarter and pull in thousands (millions) of dollars without the responsibility of ever delivering anything. All the games that had unique ideas or passion behind them have already been made. Now it is just about grabbing as many dollars as you can, stringing along your (potential) players with unfulfilled promises or milking them for micro-transactions.
Think about yourself, your life back in 2014. If you are even a moderately responsible or successful person, think about everything you have accomplished in those 5 years. Think about how your life has changed, the people that have come and gone out of your life. Five years is a long time. Think about some of the professional projects you have taken on. Maybe some small, some large, some daunting, and even the simple ones. Then start to stack those one on top on the other. A person with just a modicum of motivation can do so much with their time and energy.
This Pantheon situation is actually bewildering to me. These updates aren't even updates. They are just words from bullshit artists. Cries for more and more and more funding. False promises and illusions. The only thing real and legitimate about their business is the ability process your credit card. Something has gone very, very wrong with this project in the last year and half.
Now, jackass' with half-baked ideas, a pen, and a napkin get to go on kickstarter and pull in thousands (millions) of dollars without the responsibility of ever delivering anything. All the games that had unique ideas or passion behind them have already been made. Now it is just about grabbing as many dollars as you can, stringing along your (potential) players with unfulfilled promises or milking them for micro-transactions.
Think about yourself, your life back in 2014. If you are even a moderately responsible or successful person, think about everything you have accomplished in those 5 years. Think about how your life has changed, the people that have come and gone out of your life. Five years is a long time. Think about some of the professional projects you have taken on. Maybe some small, some large, some daunting, and even the simple ones. Then start to stack those one on top on the other. A person with just a modicum of motivation can do so much with their time and energy.
This Pantheon situation is actually bewildering to me. These updates aren't even updates. They are just words from bullshit artists. Cries for more and more and more funding. False promises and illusions. The only thing real and legitimate about their business is the ability process your credit card. Something has gone very, very wrong with this project in the last year and half.
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