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

What a disappointment this entire process has been. I swear the entire mess went straight through the 5 stages of grief haha.

1. Denial and isolation: Brad can do it, he's made mistakes, but EQ was the best, and by god this thing is going to happen!

2. Anger: Fuck you trolls this shit IS going to happen!

3. Bargaining: look, brad, I'll give you my own money to make this happen, here just take it, here's more ok? It's happening now right?

4. Depression: this whole thing is never going to happen, I'm never going to play another MMO, wtf is wrong with modern MMO gamers? Fuck my life.

5. Acceptance: Ah well, a pay per view website huh? Yeah I'm actually glad this happened, now I see how pathetic it all was to begin with, and I can move on.

At least that's how it went down for me, and I'm guessing most other normal backers (Not the junior-rocket-man armchair developers on their oh so clever subscription forums of course).

So reviewing the Shroud of the Avatar site and crowdsourcing concept have lead me to the conclusion that had someone competently managed the project, Brad & Co., could have delivered a MMORPG with much less than 8 million.

Google Drive

The link is to SotA art crowdsourcing document - basically they hand out $10 for accepted art which probably works out to $1.00 - $2.00/hour to the Artist (and of course no additional $$ for benefits or equipment or etc) this would have let the hypothetical art team focus on critical things like combat animation and saved a ton.

Not only could Brad have crowdsourced Art for Pantheon, if his hypothetical developer team had taken some hypothetical time to write scripting tools (like Neverwinter RPG) they could have crowdsourced hundreds of minor quests letting the hypothetical design team focus on key quests like: epics and dungeon-based boss quests and etc and saved more than a ton (as for those crowdsourced quests they probably could have gotten away with just handing out a "Support Dev" title in the game's final credits -_- ).

However, my point is not to bury Brad, but to praise crowd sourcing. VR may have fallen into the pit of bad social media ideas, but I think now crowd sourcing an EQ/VG clone can work - provided one of two things happen: a small core team of unknowns delivers a proto-alpha that can raise additional money/awareness on KS and then opens itself up to crowdsourcing or some other MMO named, besides Brad (though to be honest very few people come to mind as having enough old school MMOer mindshare to bring the boys to the yard - another reason why Brad's screwup with this KS is so annoying) needs to release a back of the napkin-only kickstarter just like VR, except with much prettier napkins, exuberant proto-devs and a much lower KS total.

Rhinohelix_sl said:

I mean, fuck all if I am going to pay it but with no KS funds, what else do they have to sell but access to themselves and the process?

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Real simple solution, pure donations. You could still make a $15/month for the True Believer nameplate or something but selling access to the elite info sharing/development rubs me the wrong way and Im not alone. Just same setup but with donations instead of wtf.

What the FUCK.

We've been trumped now , even the orange Champion/Developers in Training now are not the top tier on the private site. This new tier color is one you can't even buy into. It's for those who give their soul.


"Frenzic 32 minutes ago
Anyone know what the purple and green names mean on the official site? I can't post there yet so I have to ask here. I see what orange and blue mean but not purple and green =o"



"Creator Visionary Realms, Inc. 16 minutes ago
As Dosi said - Purple are for extraordinary community members who have been able to go above and beyond and help out, whether it be through assistance with website tech, creating lore with Tony, or promoting the game through exceptional channels. There will only ever be a few purple names.
Green is dev color."

So now purplesoulless> orangeChampions.

Using Kickstarter's own infrastructure to send notification emails to its subscribers redirecting them to your private crowdsourcing site, disguised as a 'kickstarter campaign update'... before your campaign is over.

You stay classy, San Diego.

kudos_sl said:

Nothing about the actual game was even mentioned. Just more KS and money talk. Is that all this guy does or is he an actual developer?

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Nothing about anything was mentioned. They basically just had Ben take the time to find creative ways to talk up the new site and encourage people to go there instead of the active KS.

I leave for a few hours and he shows up to answer a bunch of softball questions. I'm not surprised, of course, and doubt he'd answer a thing I was asking about anyhow. I don't begrudge Ben, though, he's good at what he does (and doesn't) do and we all have to make a living.

I still don't see the point of not just cancelling the KS.

Quaid_sl said:

Using Kickstarter's own infrastructure to send notification emails to its subscribers redirecting them to your private crowdsourcing site, disguised as a 'kickstarter campaign update'... before your campaign is over.

You stay classy, San Diego.

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I seriously hope somebody reports their ass for the blatant misuse of KS.

Quaid_sl said:

Using Kickstarter's own infrastructure to send notification emails to its subscribers redirecting them to your private crowdsourcing site, disguised as a 'kickstarter campaign update'... before your campaign is over.

You stay classy, San Diego.

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And they're not allowed to spam other Kickstarters about their KS, but are they allowed to spam their own KS about their private, non-KS site/endeavor? It's all pretty murky shit, but that isn't stopping them from diving head first into the muck.

popsicledeath_sl said:

I still don't see the point of not just cancelling the KS.

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Because they're using it to advertise lol.

Kirun_sl said:

I seriously hope somebody reports their ass for the blatant misuse of KS.

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Go for it, anyone can.

I doubt KS really cares that much, to be honest. This KS has bucked the trend so many times, though, it would be interesting the fallout if it did somehow miracle fund. Would it be the first KS where the site itself responded to complains and really went after the project creators? In the past KS has seemed to take a 'it's between the creators and backers' approach it seems.

Burnesto_sl said:

Because they're using it to advertise lol.

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Yeah.

I wish I were there to watch Ben avoid answering some questions. It's probably just a coincidence, but I stopped commented and finally pulled my pledge and ta-dah there's Ben answering all the tough questions being thrown at him!

popsicledeath_sl said:

Go for it, anyone can.

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I don't have a KS account and never will. Not until a startup allows me stock options for funding.

What color title do you think Dan gets on the forums?

Tol_sl said:

What color title do you think Dan gets on the forums?

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rainbow

Quaid_sl said:

Using Kickstarter's own infrastructure to send notification emails to its subscribers redirecting them to your private crowdsourcing site, disguised as a 'kickstarter campaign update'... before your campaign is over.

You stay classy, San Diego.

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It is important to remember that they haven't abandoned the KS though folks.

Do you think some of the crazies are thinking that $800k = they get their game? So many seem to act like funding is in the bag once the site is operational. Brad dropped the $7-8million number here, but I'm starting to wonder if that was never mentioned to the "apprentice developers". Even if by some miracle they manage to get that 800k they are a LONG way off from the funding needed to reach a gold launch.

Lost Ranger_sl said:

It is important to remember that they haven't abandoned the KS though folks.

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Hey also Pantheon WILL be funded and the private funding site will work out well.

The circle jerk says so.

popsicledeath_sl said:

Eh, and plenty of people get laid off with plenty of warning, especially in a large company, especially when they'd want to probably stay and finish the project through, get paychecks as long as they could, get the credit on their resume, get health insurance.

Rehash, but if Brad had called a meeting, explaining the situation, I don't think most people would be surprised, nor would most people instantly bail. Layoffs aren't uncommon in the game industry, and most people probably would have finished out their tour and at least known what to expect and plan for. Instead, Brad chose to disappear and not face a fucking thing for selfish reasons. Oh, but we got word he's been away on 'personal' reasons and to try to find investors.... Sound familiar to anything going on currently?

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It was the Microsoft pullout that killed VG and Sigil. Brad's personal problems were a side show. It is a shame Brad could not face his employees when the shit hit the fan, but some people don't lose well. I visited Sigil (as part of a fan site team) about 3 months before Microsoft pulled out and everyone including Brad was working insane hours. Drugs were no surprise. Everyone was wired on caffeine at least. The visit dissuaded me from ever wanting to work in the game development industry. One dev in particular was driving across the border and traveling 45 miles 6-7 days a week to work 12 hour days. After the visit I had a bad feeling about the direction VG was heading. The guys directing the development were largely former hard core EQ players. Dedicated, but misguided.

If you look at a company like Microsoft, they want BIG. Sigil was heading for niche. Hard core is fun if you are hard core. Few have the time to play hard core, and Microsoft saw that VG was going to be a game for a few hundred thousand instead of millions. RoF, if it ever makes it to market will likely be a niche game for hard core players.