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:
EQ:
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.
