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

That may be the nicest quote about Vanguard's release I've ever seen. Vanguard was a steaming pile of garbage at release, and remained that way basically forever.

Dislike Hartsman all you want but he fixed EQ2, he delivered a bug free good release in Rift, and he generally seems to be respected in the industry. There's a reason the guy is a CEO and trusted to turn around a company. You can't compare that to Mcquaid's current predicament of being RIFed by SOE, post leading Sigil into ruin.

The KS page highlights the biggest problem many of us have with Mcquaid, and I think you miss the elephant in the room in this comparison, mate.

need to get my fucking computer back so I can add to this thread instead of limp dicking through 40 pages a day on my tablet.

BTW brad lets hear some PvP plans.

if I might offer a suggestion? 3 hardcoded teams. trust me.

Gecko_sl said:

That may be the nicest quote about Vanguard's release I've ever seen. Vanguard was a steaming pile of garbage at release, and remained that way basically forever.

Dislike Hartsman all you want but he fixed EQ2, he delivered a bug free good release in Rift, and he generally seems to be respected in the industry. There's a reason the guy is a CEO and trusted to turn around a company. You can't compare that to Mcquaid's current predicament of being RIFed by SOE, post leading Sigil into ruin.

The KS page highlights the biggest problem many of us have with Mcquaid, and I think you miss the elephant in the room in this comparison, mate.

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I agree. I guess my big question to the supporters are, what makes you think this is going to be a reality? This exact same scenario (actually in a less favorable state since Vanguard was financed by MS) happened already, from this same person.

Trollface_sl said:

is the combat going to be tab targetting.

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That was answered in one of the kickstarter videos, it'll be tab targeting with offensive and defensive targets.

Trollface_sl said:

is the combat going to be tab targetting.

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I believe it is. The Q&A videos answer the question, so you can double check me.

Vandyn_sl said:

You miss Kreugen's point though. That only benefits the ones that go first or second, and in today's MMO world, it's usually one group of people all the time. What happens to everyone else then? Sucks for them, play a different game?

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Nobody should be handed ribbons. Might be a moot point, KS isn't making enough money right now per day to fund.

Vandyn_sl said:

Aren't you basically describing vanilla WoW on a PvP server? Tauren Mill?

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Tarren, Tarren Mill. FFS it was an undead town

Orsenfelt_sl said:

Looks like it, couple of times I've seen Brad say "More will be revealed in the PC Gamer interview!".

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Surprised at no weekend update. Insert SNL video here.

Vandyn_sl said:

Aren't you basically describing vanilla WoW on a PvP server? Tauren Mill?

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Kind of, but think of it outside of PvP too. I've posted before that I think Vanilla WoW got pretty close to a sweet spot for me. The thing is, from there WoW decided to focus on making time investment for fungible, and I think that was a mistake. It lead to a lot of, I think, iterative decisions that broke up the world and made it feel very much like a lobby game. I'd have preferred stopping just short of where Vanilla WoW was, and making the focus of the game into exploiting resources--and two of those resources would be loot and experience. (This is why I say just short of vanilla WoW, the loot would have to be more controlled and flatter for this to work.) But yeah, I happen to think Vanilla WoW was just one step beyond where I want in a game, Vanilla though is probably the closest to being "perfect" for me, outside of Planes of Power.

For a theme park game, that is. But as you can probably tell, I'm a Sandbox type of gamer and I miss the aspect of theme parks that was once about efficiency. The whole genre shifted to a difficulty paradigm. I made a huge post explaining the difference, but in essence, in an efficiency paradigm--the mobs don't need to be as complex, rather they just need to be numerically stronger and naturally inefficient to kill. The point of the game is to reward those who build groups and methods to kill them more efficiently than others in the game. This is different from the point in most games, which is more specifically to overcome each mob. It's a really subtle difference, but it has a big effect on the game. The biggest being that efficiency systems focus on the broader, strategic elements in the game (Which means they take down time, and the time between fights into consideration--more like a good stealth game, rather than Call of Duty.)

popsicledeath_sl said:

This is my issue. Posted on my Vanguard+ guild forum and people are dubious, then made more dubious. Basically, the only chance is I follow the project and keep reporting and if it's not great they think I'm a douche.

They all need to get on the same page. Mission statement. A quick and dirty Motto. Summary of the philosophy of the project. Summary of the design intentions (how they'll create the philosophy). Then talk about details not even in detail, but that all tie directly back into every other step. Everything they say you should be able to go to the mission statement and say 'yes, that's right' and right now it's all muddled. We don't even need to know these things, but they do, and we have to think they do, and right now I'm still not sure.

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That's pretty much where I am. The kickstarter page is so bad. It's so bad. Someone said it best a few pages ago, descriptions like "A group focused group game that focuses on groups" are awful. The entire page reads like a hobby project, not a group of people who are willing to lose sleep to make this happen. People should get these juicy bursts of information that make them want to follow up.

Read the game details, this is the first impression people who skip the video get when they check the page out. It is a copy/paste of 99% of MMO description pages.

The cleric reveal asks the question, What is a Cleric? And that pretty much sums up the reveal. It's a generic description of a D&D cleric with a sprinkling of nobody knows what an astral paladin is. Generic descriptions are fine for a game manual or in game creation screen, but it does nothing to drive up the interested in a kickstarter campaign.

The first description in the game details list is that Pantheon is going to be a classic take on MMO's. Anyone who played EQ or talked with anyone who played EQ heard that clerics are boring as shit to the point where spotting a non-botted cleric is like spotting a unicorn. What is going to make playing a cleric in pantheon different? Aradune mentioned that he believes that classes should fill their classic role, but there is room to jazz them up. That's exciting shit, but it isn't found on the front page nor the cleric description.

Find some way to make the reveals exciting. Tell people awesome Rob the code monkey that is busting his ass for the project had the unfortunate luck of rolling a cleric in EQ and swore he wouldn't work on the project if you guys didn't make it fun to play. Tell people what that 10-20% difference is that is going to make playing the class fun.

tad10_sl said:

I think it's fair to assume their will be a mix of open-world and instanced raiding in the game. I just don't care that much because I like the leveling/grouping game far more than raiding. It's why I liked VG more than EQ or WoW - it had the most fun and most varied leveling content. You could level three to four characters from 1-45 and never (or almost never for the fourth guy) hit the same content. I use 45 because 45-50, yeah you end up in the same places.

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Indeed !! there was often enough detail in leveling areas that you may go back a few times and learn more about the area. It took me several rerolls before I even figured out that TK was connected to cainworth hall and castle Landview and I still have yet to do the final encounter for those areas. The unfortunate thing is over the years they ramped the leveling curve so much that the content was out-leveled too quickly... of all the stupid things SOE did to vanguard, speed of leveling was the WORST.

tad10_sl said:

Yeah but good management is important. Sigil/VG failed to deliver a near bug free game at release because of bad management. You can have the best idea in the world but if you can't execute on it - you've got problems.

Obviously I support pantheon, but the KS page is something that should have been shoved off to a good PM who would have come up with something better than what we got.

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Yep, can't disagree with you.

Orsenfelt_sl said:

Looks like it, couple of times I've seen Brad say "More will be revealed in the PC Gamer interview!".

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Lots should happen Monday. Can't go into details now, sorry.

I'm not going to disagree with the overall sentiments regarding:

- the KS page being average
- Brad's track record over the last 10 years or so

But really guys....the only question you have to ask yourselves is...do you want to see it made and would you play it? If you do, chuck $100 at it. If not, no biggie. If it's not your cup of tea, that's fine.

Troy_Costisick_sl said:

It would also include Alpha access, Beta Access, the "Pantheon Explorer" title, and forum access.

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I think you and I both agree, just misfiring lol. If it included everything (all cosmetics and Alpha access, Beta Access, the "Pantheon Explorer" title, and forum access.) I agree and your price point would be perfect. BUT what I am asking for is that the second copy (keep first copy as is) just include the cosmetic in game items and be $15 to $25 more. For me the extra alpha/beta access for the second account is worthless and I am sure many people have significant others who would want to play the game/cosmetics but have no interest in testing. Thats where I am coming from. Heck, there is no reason what I am looking for and what you are looking for could not be separate tiers.

Aradune_sl said:

Lots should happen Monday. Can't go into details now, sorry.

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Brad... do you ever speak to Scott Hartsman? Just curious how many times your paths have crossed or what you have worked on together. I noticed Smed shared on Twitter about Pantheon but curious if the likes of Scott, Mark Jacobs, and/or others have been in communication with you?

Just curious Brad said he was only going to be the CCO of this project. Yet it seems he is currently essentially chief of everything. Will this project be getting some big marketing/business ect.. heads? I wish they had someone with a background in this before the KS.