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

Big Flex

Fitness Fascist
4,314
3,166
Also I just wanted to reiterate this point from Brad's recent IGN interview.

Ramsay: Has crowdfunding proved markedly different from chasing publishers?

McQuaid: Oh, yeah. Boy, where to start? There'sso much more informationon our Kickstarter page,not just in terms of quantity but also in terms of quality. Wehave more detailed systems than when we talked to Microsoft about Vanguard. With Pantheon,we're much further along.
There's a reason chess is still popular today. There's a reason poker is still popular today. other wisdom stuff
Get with the times, grandpa, you're stuck in the old days of analog games that require a table and people HA! My Atari Jaguar is 64-bit, your gay ass Super Nintendo is a 16-bit baby toy from the stone age.
 

Convo

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
8,792
664
If the game is good, people will play it. Even the biggest critics/haters in this thread would. Kirun would be under his bed sheets examining his Pantheon cloth map with a flashlight.

The uphill battle is very obvious to most of the people here. It's hard enough to make a decent MMO, without the hurdles of funding and the more recent communication missteps. It's certainly easier to jump off this ride before the wheels come off. I understand those who have, the team hasn't inspired a ton of confidence at this point.. I'm here for the long haul and hope to be a part of things getting better. I told Brad back in august I would help anyway I could. I plan to stick to that. I know it's not the cool thing to do right now, but I'm loyal like that. That doesn't mean I wont be calling them on stuff a long the way. I want this game to be made and pumping the team full of praise wont do it. We need honest, critical feedback.
 

Mr Creed

Too old for this shit
2,395
289
And apparently his actual target audience is not buying into his name only and want some proof before they swipe the Visa. Time to man up and get work done before the rewards roll in, Brad.
 

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
27,031
41,385
And apparently his actual target audience is not buying into his name only and want some proof before they swipe the Visa. Time to man up and get work done before the rewards roll in, Brad.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. There just needs to be more than emblems of classes some napkin scribbles and 3 pieces of art. People want to see more, especially with Brads shady past. Like I said, youre only as good as your last mmo.

They need to head down to the basement for a few months, come up with some shit, even one zone with a working combat model and some mobs.
 

Convo

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
8,792
664
And apparently his actual target audience is not buying into his name only and want some proof before they swipe the Visa. Time to man up and get work done before the rewards roll in, Brad.
It still kills me that there wasn't more. I mean, we talked about it a lot.. Even if he went the 200K route for the startup like was mentioned last night. Looking back he said he would of.

I think it's perfectly fair for people to say this isn't enough, show us more. That's what is being said right now by a lot of people. I know I thought it with the Races. No race concept art!? Maybe the diehards will get them to another KS in 8-12 months where they can show more. I'm still waiting for all the CF details but even I feel weird about a monthly sub if it wouldn't equal game time and rewards.
 

Dumar_sl

shitlord
3,712
4
Speaking of horses, if I went back to Afghanistan I'd totally take a horse again over a car.
I would absolutely without hesitation take a horse over a vehicle stuck on the capital beltway. The delicious irony of modern technology getting me homeslowerthan the horse.
 

Mr Creed

Too old for this shit
2,395
289
I'm not sure he'll get another shot - he's certainly throwing away faith and goodwill by the handful with nearly every interview. I'm gonna be behind any project that wants to make the game I want and presents themselves as capable of completing it.

I dont even necessarily need a playable demo with a zone - I can accept that might take some time. But what I want is detailed facts without any ambiguity that leaves room for whatever changes they want to make later on. They should have had that before the KS, they failed that, fine. Learn your lesson, back to the drawing board for 5 months and come back with the project details and plans you should have had after your first 5 months of "hard, pro bono work".
 

Hatorade

A nice asshole.
8,673
7,582
Despite the obscene amount of pages this thread has it is good to see the Majority of MMO veterans have learned their lesson about this shit. Despite the few that have put their money where their mouth is makes it even more evident that cynicism is holding our wallets down.
 

popsicledeath

Potato del Grande
7,547
11,831
I'm not totally averse to new mechanics. I think Pantheon's death mechanic is really awesome.
It's not exactly new, though? Isn't it pretty similar to Vanguards? Which is fine. I just don't know I'd call it new mechanics. I also don't know why it took them so long to shit out a couple paragraphs on one of the foundational aspects of their game design and philosophy.
 

Lithose

Buzzfeed Editor
25,946
113,041
The 'quality of life' afforded by certain regulatory constructs is not the same 'quality of life' provided by the jet engine, and that's what many who push for 'modern innovations' and 'new gameplay' often sell it as, the equivalent.
That wasn't really the main point, though. The main thrust being that "new" systems often iterate life inoneor a narrow set of directions--in this case, speed. The Jet, despite being amazing, sacrifices a lot of other qualities for speed. So assuming "the jet" is the pinnacle of achievement, is a mistake---things are defined by context, the jet is good at moving things fast. Just because it replaced an old system due to it's speed (Like say horses again)? Does not mean it had capturedallthe advantages of that old system had, and that could mean there are tons of refinements and iterations from that old system that never got a modern shake. (IE Bio fuel.)

Anyway, the main point being that you can write off old "systems", because new systems are often "evolutionary" in terms of what they do. Very, very rarely is something completely revolutionary in that it can 100% replace the old system in every conceivable way (This is why post apocalypse horses are a thing in movies; because, for example, jets need worldwide infrastructure, horses do not). And that's because, as you said, and I said earlier; in old systems, there are usually many good aspects that didn't get "evolved" in the change--they were just kind of left there. And that's why dismissing a "buggy", even against the backdrop of a jet engine? Is something that might end up leading to missing something important.

Long and short? As I said earlier. EQ's CR system had a lot of good AND bad aspects. They were dropped because the genre "evolved" along a specific direction (Like jets for speed!). But that doesn't mean they were all useless aspects (Like horse bio-efficiency). In the end, old systems can evolve a ton of ways and that's useful to remember when asking the "why" question you postulated in the end of your post.

(And I get what you're saying about the bigger picture--obviously from my CR posts you know I understand. The point of this though was even focusing on just advancements of things that SEEM completely superior? You can almost always go back and find something that is/was still useful in the old system. Writing something off due to it being replaced, is just begging to miss innovative thinking. Not everything is replaced for universal reasons.)
 

popsicledeath

Potato del Grande
7,547
11,831
I think the only modern advacement from EQ's death penalty should be:

1) Ghost floating over your corpse where you can turn and see what's going on, but can't move. Or you're just laying on the ground but can still see (so haven't 'released' your corpse ala Vanguard). Either way, let people still watch the chaos.

2) Shady goblin treasure hunters in a major city slum you can buy your gear back from if you can't get a res or successful CR so you don't lose all your shit, but you don't get exp back. This would also give a recourse to lost corpses instead of dealing with GMs having to summon it and feed you lines of bullshit how it's working as intended to die on a Plane of Fear break but your corpse is so NOT in the zone it can't even be summoned by a necro.

I hate graveyards and summoning your corpse by praying at some altar that you KNOW will give too much exp back because people are bitches and the devs will cave.
 

Convo

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
8,792
664
I think the only modern advacement from EQ's death penalty should be:

1) Ghost floating over your corpse where you can turn and see what's going on, but can't move. Or you're just laying on the ground but can still see (so haven't 'released' your corpse ala Vanguard). Either way, let people still watch the chaos.

2) Shady goblin treasure hunters in a major city slum you can buy your gear back from if you can't get a res or successful CR so you don't lose all your shit, but you don't get exp back. This would also give a recourse to lost corpses instead of dealing with GMs having to summon it and feed you lines of bullshit how it's working as intended to die on a Plane of Fear break but your corpse is so NOT in the zone it can't even be summoned by a necro.

I hate graveyards and summoning your corpse by praying at some altar that you KNOW will give too much exp back because people are bitches and the devs will cave.
I hope not. There was a disclaimer at the end. I'm hoping if anything it's tuned to not be a viable option. I would of rather seen a tradeskill item like a survival kit instead of them using a god. At least the community, and the economy benefit that way.
 

Dahkoht_sl

shitlord
1,658
0
Also I just wanted to reiterate this point from Brad's recent IGN interview.


Ramsay: Has crowdfunding proved markedly different from chasing publishers?

McQuaid: Oh, yeah. Boy, where to start? There'sso much more information on our Kickstarter page, not just in terms of quantity but also in terms ofquality. We have more detailed systems than when we talked to Microsoft about Vanguard. With Pantheon, we're much further along.
Really all that needs to be said about how out of touch and clueless he is isn't it ? He thinks the KS page is quality. It's shit, it's pure shit. It's terrible compared to most every other comparable KS page in this price range. And many much less than that.

I don't care what magical ability Brad has now on game design (and I'm beginning to doubt that too and think he did luck into EQ with others ), Brad is well below average on common fucking sense. How can anyone try and say he is not moron when it comes to running any sort of business now. He's provided multiple examples of he will fuck things up if in charge of anything.

So what do you all think is to come of the 200-400 k he may get from directly paypald'd donations on the private site ? Someone logically explain to me what chance there is of getting at least 4 million or so to actually make the game come to fruition if he can't crack 500k on the KS , and has to beg for angel investors ?

He fooled me the first few weeks of this KS. Shame the fuck on me , lesson learned.

I just honestly am curious how giving him a fucking dime to his private site isn't 100% guaranteed throwing your money away with all the current examples we have of how he handles things ?
 

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
27,031
41,385
Lithose ive been reading your shit and its quite fascinating, just your general deep though and understanding of these systems. Im truly humbled, dude.

Anyways, what were some of the downfalls of eqs death systems as you see them? Since all you seemed to cover was its strengths. I mean the obvious ones are that sometimes it was too harsh of a penalty, too much time was spent on retrieval, etc.. Also it led to some content not being used at all because the risks heavily outweighed the rewards, but thats more of a balance issue IMO.

Also how would you handle death in your mmo?
 

Big Flex

Fitness Fascist
4,314
3,166
I really wish I was a fly on the wall during some of these planning sessions.

Ben or somebody - "Brad we have over 2,500 backers, if we implement a premium forum on our site, that's almost 40k a month! By the end of the development cycle we'd have made like 1,500,000 dollars! That's even BETTER than a kickstarter! "

Brad - "That's an awesome idea! And we said we weren't crowd funding experts LOL! Alright, I gotta get ready for this AMA, there's going to be a ton more people this time, so I gotta bring my A game."
 

popsicledeath

Potato del Grande
7,547
11,831
I just honestly am curious how giving him a fucking dime to his private site isn't 100% guaranteed throwing your money away with all the current examples we have of how he handles things ?
My approach had always been that I was pledging for the outside chance at seeing a game, but moreso for a front row seat to the MMO version of a demolition derby. That's not even fun now, because the only people buying into this project are so fucking delusional and fanatical it's boring. And the chance of a game actually coming from this keeps plummeting. I really don't even see much value or entertainment in failure at this point. They've done so poorly they're making themselves irrelevant, which is the worst possible situation.