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

cinge_sl said:

You're on crack. And homogenization goes against pretty much what people, who want this type of game, seem to want.

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What I said has nothing to do with homogenization.

Khane_sl said:

You guys would legitimately be happy with copy pasted classes from a 15 year old game?

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Isn't that 15 year old game why we are all here 400 pages later? Yea, were pretty happy with the 15 year old "lame boring" classes.

Boozecube_sl said:

Man come the fuck off it, Muligan summed up pretty well some of the glaring issues with this project, and I hate to break it to you but we didn't hold a gun to their head and make them launch this Kickstarter. Nor is it our responsibility to fix it. Still we have tried to offer suggestions to fix it, you might enjoy paying for the privilege to work on this project for them but I doubt so many people are willing to climb aboard the same boat and continue blowing smoke up everyone's asses.

We have done the only thing we can do as a community, which is discuss the merits of this "game". I say "game" because there is no fucking game and you know it. What we have is a group of unemployed has-beens asking for cash to found a company which will then ask for money to make a game. In spite of all of that there has been page after page of constructive criticism, sure there has been a fair bit of hyperbole and sarcasm sprinkled in but it's the fucking internet what do you expect.

Brad McQuaid is the George Lucas of MMO's, in a galaxy far far away this mother fucker got lucky and had a bright enough team surrounding him that he became successful in spite of himself. Everything he has touched since this has been a mere shadow of his glory, and reveal him for the fraud he is.

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Awfully emotional and diluted post. Come off of what? I post some logical positive opinions and I get bashed? Am I supposed to sit here and spew crybaby negativity as you and so many other are doing? Yes there are negatives, and positives. That of which exists in any project regardless if it's on kick-starter or not.

EQ class design was, without a doubt, the worst thing about the game.

Quaid_sl said:

EQ class design was, without a doubt, the worst thing about the game.

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I'd disagree. They all had unique abilities/spells, class identity and each had role to do that no one else could fill.

Utnayan_sl said:

Did he go by Ozzmar during his GM days on Quellious?

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No idea

Forget about EQ classes, I just want Vanguard classes instead.

Actually I was hoping they would use VG as their template for class design as EQ while all classes had their Identity, they weren't all needed. Being a Necro didn't get you invited to raids except to play mana-battery and help recover corpses when shit hit the fan. That there is terrible design.

Lore is NOT going to bring in money. Lore is fun to read and adds to the color of the game. Here's the kicker though. Lore enhances content, gives it meaning, like it did EQ. However, there isn't much content to enhance. I'm not even talking about in-game content. I'm talking like the EQ movie when we were told about Veshaan creating the world and the purpose of every race. It really catered to you imagination.

Long story short. Lore right now is meaningless unless you are planning on this Kickstarter being used to fun a book series like Lord of the Rings except titled Pantheon.

Merlin_sl said:

Isn't that 15 year old game why we are all here 400 pages later? Yea, were pretty happy with the 15 year old "lame boring" classes.

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Well opinions are opinions. But there is certainly room to add some innovative mechanics to an existing set of core skills rather than just copy/pasting an entire classes spell book and calling it a day.

Tearofsoul_sl said:

Forget about EQ classes, I just want Vanguard classes instead.

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No mage class makes me sad. I want Kibartik back. They were also supposed to make a Summoner class for Vanguard, but never did.

I want my elemental pets back In an actual pet class where you depend on them and not just have them as an extra dot.

Merlin_sl said:

Isn't that 15 year old game why we are all here 400 pages later? Yea, were pretty happy with the 15 year old "lame boring" classes.

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I agree with this... EQ classes were simple. They had singular roles and purposes thus making it easy to create groups and fine tune you skills. Rift was the other extreme. I don't really mind classes as long as I don't have the ability to specialize my way out of being effective or even needed.

Muligan_sl said:

Long story short. Lore right now is meaningless unless you are planning on this Kickstarter being used to fun a book series like Lord of the Rings except titled Pantheon.

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The only book that needs to be made from this is Kickstarter for Dummies.

Hi. First post. Feel free to dismiss this, since I'm a January '14 baby, and I wasn't in EQ on launch, joining a year later. My computer wasn't good enough at the time, I was young, and so I spent most of my time in MUDs. But since that time, I've played every major MMO and so I think I might be able to offer a different perspective as to why this Kickstarter is failing - and, frankly, should fail.

1. Brad McQuaid isn't actually a good designer. He's lazy and a plagiarist.

I know there are people out there who view him as a (planar) god, but he's a quintessential example of a guy - as he himself admits - who was in the right place at the right time. And I'm not even talking about the drug-fueled disappearing act he did on Vanguard while other people did the work. I'm talking about EQ. The vast majority of the things he implemented in EQ that you all like were, in terms of game systems, plagiarized entirely from Sojourn/TorilMUD. He did a decent job of creating an actual world and the relevant lore, but I've heard rumors that he ripped off most of that from his old DM.

Need proof? Compare the skills of Sojourn/TorilMUD's ranger with that of EQ's ranger:

TorilMUD:

Level 1. Kick, Bash, Rescue, Mount, Offense, 1h bludgeon, 1h slashing, 1h piercing, 1h misc, 2h slashing, 2h bludgeon, 2h misc
Range Specialist, Bandage, Archery, Swimming. Level 5. Trap, Defense. Level 10. Blindfighting , Dual wield, Spellcast Skills, Sorcerous/Clerical Spell Knowledge, Quick Chant, Meditate. Level 12. Dodge Level 14. Parry Level 15. Surprise, Awareness Level 30. Riposte, Missile Snare

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EQ:

Level 1. 1 Hand Blunt, 1 Hand Slashing, 2 Hand Blunt, 2 Hand Slashing, Archery, Bind Wound, Defense, Hand to Hand, Offense, Piercing, Taunt, Throwing, Level 5. Kick, Level 8. Dodge, Level 17. Dual Wield, Level 18. Parry, Level 20. Double Attack , Level 35. Disarm, Level 35. Riposte

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Good job cutting and pasting and adding graphics, Brad.

2. If there IS a "vision" for this MMO, it certainly hasn't been communicated.

Folks here can mock Dave Georgeson all they want (and I have my own issues with him and the creepy eternal-smile) but his EQN reveal (regardless of what you think about the game) was brilliant. "Here are our core pillars. Here's the rationale for why we think these core pillars are essential to evolving MMOs. Here are examples of how these core philosophies will play out in in game systems."

What are Brad's core pillars? Grouping? Dude, every MMO has grouping - you didn't provide any tangible examples for how the grouping would be significantly different except for the fact that there will be more of it.

That's how Pantheon's Kickstarter reads now: an MMO being made by a guy who "designed" MMOs (and by that I mean plagiarized and/or stumbled around in a drug-fueled stupor) that has GROUPING. More on this in #4 below.

Imagine if he communicated whatever his stupid ass vision is in more concrete terms that communicated an overall design philosophy. If he had branded this entire thing as: "A Return to the Hardcore MMO. A constant challenge. Doing to World of Warcraft what Day Z did to Resident Evil and Dark Souls did to the Legend of Zelda." No idea if he's just a complete moron at how to brand ideas, or if he just doesn't have any ideas to brand. (Based on the bullshit he's released since then, like attunement, I'm suspecting the latter.)

3. No new ideas or better presentation and packaging of those ideas.

To have a successful Kickstarter you have to have ideas that are off-the-charts revolutionary (StarForge) OR you have to put older ideas in a new, polished and interesting package (Banner Saga) that people find compelling. I haven't seen a single new idea of value being presented. Just like he stole the design ideas of EQ from TorilMUD, he's now trying to take those same ideas and put them in a Planescape skin. Planar attunement? Yeah, that's in Planescape. Stealing the abilities of monsters you fight and forging them into your own heroic entity? That's a mix of Planescape and the short-lived D&D Birthright.

And as for the packaging - it looks like shit. And the reasons are obvious - they don't have any cash, pre-alpha, etc, etc - but really, it looks terrible. And when you combine stale ideas with terrible packaging, you don't get money from Kickstarter.

4. There aren't enough old-school EQ fans still out there and interested in playing MMOs to fund this.

If there was, it would be well on its way to being funded already. The fact of the matter is, for this to get funded, it has to bring in new players from other, more established MMOs. That's why Camelot Unchained was successful, even though it had old ideas as well - there were a bunch of guilds that were playing Guild Wars 2, were unsatisfied with the RvR PVP provided by it, weren't seeing anything of potential in Elder Scrolls, and thought: "This may be our ticket." Many of those guild leaders played the original DAOC but many of their members didn't, but were influenced by their guilds.

The MMO you have to pull 'new' players from is Warcraft, Brad. And while we all know that EQ was a better MMO than Warcraft, precisely because it was more focused on community and far less casual, the majority of WoW-babies have no idea. And what you're showing them - an MMO that may look like shit but it has grouping!!! - isn't going to pull them away.

5. From day one, it's been sloppy and unprofessional.

Enough said. Why trust you with any money? Fans tend to be smarter than whatever ghost investors (Smed) you've lined up.

Well, I think a good Lore does help, but ONLY after knowing the game is actually fun. If the game is not attractive, no one gives a fuck about lore.

delirium_sl said:

Being a Necro didn't get you invited to raids except to play mana-battery and help recover corpses when shit hit the fan. That there is terrible design.

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Then again, your the only class who is soloing the same mob it takes a group of six people to take down. Every class had its tradeoffs.