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

Denaut_sl said:

Oh, you can spend your money as you want. It doesn't mean I can't criticize you for it, and offer my opinion that it would do more good elsewhere.

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Sure, just as i can point out how full of shit your posts have been from the first "I do so hate to say bad things about people" where you then proceeded to start trashing the project.

Bruman_sl said:

And Secrets - I generally like you a lot, but you are unfortunately way off base. Yes, you can do anything with code, but on an actual project with an actual budget, when the developers themselves don't get to pick what to work on, the business many many times is not interested in performance nor bug fixing, but whatever new feature has been promised. I'm not in MMO development, but that's a fact of life no matter what sector of development you're in. You can also absolutely make a wrong decision early on, for it not to become apparent until later, and it be too expensive to ever "fix perfectly".

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This is the first rational response I have seen in a while. Yes, I am aware that I answer to myself when I code, and not management.

But see, that's where things like kickstarter actually make magic happen; You are able to make the game your team and community wants, not what the investors want. That's why I have high hopes for Pantheon and I assume I am not alone in my methodology.

All being said, I completely understand that viewpoint and I understand it does happen when money is thrown on the table and cannot be negated entirely. But that's the thing, you can negate having to change your game too much by going to kickstarter.

Flipmode_sl said:

Still don't think the cleric robe wearing healer seems like a bloodmage. Disciple type maybe. They had a monk type vibe and lore fits their beliefs type system.

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Not at all Blood Mage. Nor Disciple. I'm okay with it being a different, more caster oriented version of a cleric (as is at least being vaguely described by the class description). Just having the fact there's a casting healer doesn't make the class a blood mage. Chloromancer, for instances, is often compared to the Blood Mage, but played quite differently and of course there's all the lore and style stuff that nobody cares about but that greatly influenced how the class felt playing.

You had abilities to harvest organs from creatures and stitch them onto your allies as buffs. You had blood bonds with other players or your group that used your own health to heal them, or sacrificed their health for someone else in the group. Heals that were transfusions of blood. Damage that was creating bursting cysts on the enemy. You'd create a blood union with the disgusting, foul creatures you were fighting to then use that blood against them.

I don't care if the result of buffs end up exactly the same and the differences between Blood Mage and Curate ended up just being changing spell names, having all that be the divine favor of your god changes the class changes it, and imo greatly. That, and I don't see how you could have a cleric based casting healer that we've already had described in the Curate even play the same way on a mechanics level, because that would have to be one evil, fucked up cleric. Just adding a dress and spells to a cleric doesn't make it a Blood Mage. Even adding heal-via-damage abilities to a wizard in Rift didn't even make it a Blood Mage, as Chloromancer felt very different and didn't even play all that much the same from a mechanics perspective.

Really, Blood Mage was more like a black robed wizard from DnD, perhaps about the closest to Raistlin from the Dragon Lance novels. Or early anatomists experimenting on both living and soon-to-be-dead victims trying to learn the secrets of the human body or harness it's essence.

If they wanted to re-create the class, but without directly stealing it, I think they'd have to make it more a necro-healer. Which, might end up being more fun than a Blood Mage, as then you'd add corpses and your pet into decisions about healing instead of just other players or your own health.

Denaut_sl said:

Oh, you can spend your money as you want. It doesn't mean I can't criticize you for it, and offer my opinion that it would do more good elsewhere.

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Where is elsewhere? Please let me know.

Denaut_sl said:

Whatever those reasons are, and I am sure they are very valid, they won't be duplicated by a new game. They can't be.

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So you don't know what the reasons are, yet you know they can't be in another game?

I am actually changing my opinion about the parking lot firing right this moment. Turns out the people let go were stupid and useless.

Flobee_sl said:

Well I can certainly agree on the point of taking a new direction with the genre. There is a lot of room for creativity and ingenuity while staying under the MMORPG umbrella. That being said I don't think that creating a solid DIKU (or eq clone if you want) is invalid. I could certainly be wrong about that, you have a solid point seeing as how it really hasn't been done yet.

I'm just less willing to stick a fork in it.

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I am glad you see what I am saying. I actually do think there is room for DIKU MMORPGs, they just won't really look much like EQ or the many iterations of them we've seen before. Whatever it is will be quite new and different, and it won't come from somewhere we are expecting.

Or, it might be a game that isn't DIKU style at all, but pull in the better elements of one. Like, say a 3rd person shooter MMO with forced grouping really good non-instanced dungeon crawling. Stuff like that isn't going to come from where we are all looking.

Also while I think there are some folks who are stupid enough to expect that "first kiss" crap of EQ again, I think anyone here including myself knows that's not going to happen.

But I do know I want most of those types of mechanics , and a remade EQ or VG is still far ahead of ANYTHING currently out or coming out soon (including ESO and WS) for me. So nostalgic first crap aside , I enjoy mmo's , I specifically prefer little instancing , travel taking time , death penalties , open world trumping anything phased/instanced so on and so on. So for myself Pantheon (or a privately made mmo using the EQL tools ) really seems to be my main chances of getting something I enjoy.

Guys, there IS NO other game in the pipeline. NONE. All of this 'might be a game that isn't DIKU style at all' nonsense has no meaning because there is NO NEW diku style game or NO NEW non-diku style game. There is NOTHING. If there is, show me. Show me this fucking mystical MMORPG in development or even pre-production. Show me.

I don't want 'there's speculation that..' or, 'maybe next year we'll see a new concept'... 'they're reworking Titan' It's all bullshit because NOBODY is making ANYTHING.

Like I said, some of your kids will be in college, some will be senior citizens, some might be dead before the next real MMORPG comes out. 2024 is fucking optimistic. THAT is the fucking truth. THAT is the bottom-fucking-line of this kickstarter.

Denaut_sl said:

a 3rd person shooter MMO with forced grouping really good non-instanced dungeon crawling.

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Sounds awful. Have you ever played Firefall?

Denaut_sl said:

I hate to be the bearer of bad news (ok not really), but what you want will never exist again, sorry. Brad isn't making it with Pantheon, even though you keep telling yourself that, and neither will anyone else ever.

What you want is to go back in time when MMORPGs were a new and exciting medium that was totally unexplored, full of magic and mystery. You want to be young again and re-experience your first kiss. That isn't, nor will it ever, happen. It can't. Mimicking poorly designed mechanics will not return you to a state of online gaming naivety, it will just make for a bad game.

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That is a common, albeit erroneous characterization as to what people are looking for.

Secrets_sl said:

Sounds awful. Have you ever played Firefall?

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Firstly, I was just giving an example.

Secondly, yes and I quite like it. I also tons of Global Agenda.

Dahkoht_sl said:

Also while I think there are some folks who are stupid enough to expect that "first kiss" crap of EQ again, I think anyone here including myself knows that's not going to happen.

But I do know I want most of those types of mechanics , and a remade EQ or VG is still far ahead of ANYTHING currently out or coming out soon (including ESO and WS) for me. So nostalgic first crap aside , I enjoy mmo's , I specifically prefer little instancing , travel taking time , death penalties , open world trumping anything phased/instanced so on and so on. So for myself Pantheon (or a privately made mmo using the EQL tools ) really seems to be my main chances of getting something I enjoy.

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I agree. This first kiss argument is crap. Funny how I (however far in the minority I am) felt damn near the same way in Vanguard I did in EQ. The music in Hathor Zi was epic and the sounds of my slaying little critters, and running to the tents to sell my useless crap.....it was damn near like killing rats and snakes in front of Qeynos and running around the corner to sell in that store......so actually, yes, it can be done. Was it EQ? No, of course not, but I played the shit out of it and loved every second.
I also played GW2, for about 1 hour and hated it. So it is game mechanics rather then a hymen I'm after.

Convo_sl said:

IMO.. EQN is really the only mmo coming out for me, that's offering something so new, it's worth spending money on.. That assuming a lot about features we don't have full details on too..

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I would agree with this also I try not to get excited cause the devil is running it..but I'm a sandbox man not a loot pinata man so I'm kinda bias..

The way I see we been playing EQ to EQ lite for ages

eq>wow>eq2>vanguard>rift>swtor>teso all shit

uo>swg>eve 3 major sandboxes WTF all classics

Big Flex_sl said:

so do you guys think a reddit ama and a exposure via a boogie interview would push this over 500k?

i agree with the sentiment expressed here and elsewhere that drumming up additional visibility is putting the cart before the horse if they dont finish unfucking the kickstarter page and add alot, alot more "info" to it first.

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I still think they need to remove most of the game 'information' from the KS. Not because information is bad, but because it's unfocused, rambling bullshit.

I still think they need to remove all the videos and either edit them or re-shoot them into one, coherent, focused video that talks more about their plans and their desire to get back into making the sort of game we haven't seen for so long, and less about vague shit about how a game that doesn't exist is gonna rock.

I still think they need to have a better, more focused mission statement and summary, so people aren't met with a shitty hype-train video and then a ton of links to other places. The other places should be sending people to KS, not the other way around.

They took out the 'screenshots' that were of default assets, but they need to take down the initial video not only because it's bad, but because it has 'footage' that isn't the game. They could certainly then release a video of 'footage' where they're very, clearly explaining it's just them testing the combat system with default assests and pointing out things they're finding, learning or achieving, because right now people look at it and only think 'that's how the game will look' when we should/could be thinking 'they're working on the game and are giving me a sneak peak into the process of building a combat system.'

Basically, same issue as always. The KS looks like some teenage girl's myspace, plastered with everything they think is neato and then just keep being added to instead of having information edited into it.

And their website. Let it exist. Put most of the more in depth game info and shit on the website for people who want it. At this stage, most people don't care, they just want tidbits and a reason to believe. The people who do care only care because the initial presentation was so lacking we started having to ask questions and call them on bullshit. If they answer the important questions, give us enough to believe, then people won't be so skeptical as to require information on every last detail. Basically, entry level proposal presentation 101.

220k

Secrets_sl said:

Sounds awful. Have you ever played Firefall?

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I lold. He refuses to stay on point as Dumar and you point out. This thread is not about a third person shooter MMO

Aeiouy_sl said:

That is a common, albeit erroneous characterization as to what people are looking for.

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We are just going to have to disagree. People in general are incredibly bad at knowing what they really want or judging what will make them happy. Those running around Rerolled are much more astute and accurate about these things but even then we are all often very wrong.

People often behave in a way that is contrary to their words, usually without realizing it.

Big Flex_sl said:

they got reality checked pretty quick and hard though. im glad this happened. so if this pig gets funded, they got humbled a bit beforehand.

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Humility is always a good thing. Though I've also found that people who need to be humbled over and over may never be.

tad10_sl said:

Just pointing out Denaut raised a straw man. There is no group of young devs making an MMO.

I'm rather tired of people raising issues that I pointed out before this kickstarter begin as if they are sharing some unique insight.

Denaut buddy we know Brad can't produce, we know about the lack of programmers, we know about the poorly run kickstarter. But if this doesn't get funded your young devs in a garage won't ever show up because they will think no market exists.

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I would say a young group of devs in a garage would have quite a time of it. Mmogs are extremely complicated and so much knowledge and understanding was trios and error. If a group of guys who just started playing wow as their first mmog in 2008 , they are likely going to make a ton of errors that will impact the playability of any game they develop. There were thousands of decisions in wows development based off what happened in the games that came before it. I would be curious to see such a game to at least exploit the crap out of it.

The best development team would be mmog developer veterans mixed equally with a group of fresh young talent. That is likely where your best results will come from. I get nervous when the pantheon team or the Everquest next team are all portrayed as long time industry veterans. Thst is all most as bad as having a bunch of newbs with no history or experience with the games.

You need some of each for the best possible outcome.