Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO

Fyff said:

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.

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Mat'hir Uth Gan said:

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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Kay said:

I'm not sure exactly when Joppa took over, but he's been there since at least 2014. Fuzzy troll era ended no later than late 2015, not 2016.

They say one Pantheon zone is equivalent to all of the Karanas. Have they shown anything to make that plausible? They used to say this was intended as a niche game for an old-school market, and now they don't. They say a lot of things, and then do whatever will bring in the cash.

You say Faerthale was in PA4. Are you sure about that? You say shown publicly, but their newsletters keep stating they're "hard at work on Project Faerthale." How are any of those ready to go?

Climbing is fleshed out and in game. I only remember seeing climbing in action in very early stream footage. I can't stomach Cohh, so I could be wrong, but have they actually shown climbing still functioning and in game? All I see is piecemeal work on systems that they manage to at least get to function in one place to toss in a stream, after which they either mysteriously vanish, or are the only things in streams.

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Mat'hir Uth Gan said:

Chris was hired as the music producer originally. He did an interview in July 2016 where he talked about taking over the project.

They still say this is a niche game for the old school market. They are very consistent about that. However, they also don't want to simply claim this is for EQ players only. The "Old School" type market being people that want a group focused, slower, more strategic combat experience in an open world setting. Hasn't been a game like this in a long while, so will be interesting to see what college age gamers think, but it's probably going to remain niche.

They've shown their zones on various streams. The dungeons can be difficult to gauge the size of, but Avendyr's Pass and Thronefast are gigantic. Faerthale is probably the biggest zone, and it was definitely in PA4, but not in it's finished state. It has not been streamed publicly yet, but they did allow some of the PA testers to talk about it.

They said climbing is in game as of right now, but we haven't seen it in action. The raid encounter requires a fair bit of climbing, so they had to get it done. That said, nobody has seen that fight in action yet, so that is going purely by what they said.

Overall, I think the pessimism and caution is warranted. They have to show more, I agree. I'm just optimistic based on what I've seen improve in the game in the last two years. The team is as big and talented as it has ever been. That doesn't say a lot, but it does say things are on the upswing to some extent. I'm waiting to really judge them after they release Project Faerthale. If it doesn't deliver in terms of drastic improvements, then I'll potentially grab my own pitchfork.

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Fight said:

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.

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