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

kudos_sl said:

Oh God, my pants are so wet right now.

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You think that's cool? Check this out...


Project 1999 - View Single Post - My 3D EQ Fan-art

Lithose_sl said:

Many of his releases had to be revised mid stream, many of his reward structures were convoluted and required post release editing; it was just a mess. From those studies, we see that how many backers a community delivers? Takes a significant (Very large) hit depending on these "low quality" signals. The fact they breached 50% is pretty amazing given this--it's also HIGHLY abnormal. Most KS's that pass 30% tend to finish funding, especially if they pass it early on (Which Pantheon did).

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While I loathe to get into a argument with you Lithose (because, damn dude, you can post) but I think this "abnormal" KS isn't that abnormal when you factor in the audience. Sure, it's abnormal for Kickstarter as a whole, it might even be abnormal for video games in KS, but it sure as shit isn't abnormal when dealing with the cult of personality that is present for this project.

Those 3k backers would probably throw money at anything that had Brad McQuaid stamped on it. In fact this particular KS shows just how strong that cult is. The reason why Pantheon didn't fund even though it broke the 30% threshold (which is did in the first few days of the KS, yes?) is because the market was tapped already, the best they could do at that point was for current backers to dig deeper into their pockets, which unsurprisingly, some did.

The market for a Brad MMO is tapped.

Iannis_sl said:

Um. Ozzy didn't fail dozens of times.


At worst, Ozzy failed once.

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Ozzy fails every time he tries to speak words.

You had me at HELLO....

nopeone man one jar link

Sabbat_sl said:

I think this "abnormal" KS isn't that abnormal when you factor in the audience. Sure, it's abnormal for Kickstarter as a whole, it might even be abnormal for video games in KS, but it sure as shit isn't abnormal when dealing with the cult of personality that is present for this project.

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Yeah, like I posted to Kir...There is certainly no denying EQ "hardcore" fans are a pretty nutty bunch. So that might be a reason we saw all these abnormal trends (And seriously, a lot of these trends were highly abnormal). But I'm not sure I'd put my money on it all being that; in the end, it was probably a mix of things.

zzeris_sl said:

Saying that this attempt was one of the largest ever on KS means very little. Brad is a very experienced developer who is well known. How many other KS starters can really say that? Most of them are small, homegrown projects so it's not really a fair comparison. I could set up a huge banquet for the top people in DC with some of the top chefs in the world making the food. Bill Clinton could have planned one out of the back of a homeless shelter and used the shelter's staff as his cooks. Who would get more guests from an invitation? Brad being a fuck up is only part of the issue. It does not imply a base of support either way. The total lack of anyone making something like this? That really speaks volumes.

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Well, no one said it was the the largest ever ..even for "large scope" projects though, it was funded and backed well given a few variables that usually lead to failure or small funded projects (Such as not having an organized social media campaign ect).

As for "Brad's name carrying weight"...You have to askwhodoes it carry weight with? Only the "old school" MMO crowd (lets face it, among most modern WoW players, many don't even know what EQ was, let alone "Brad Mcquaid"). So that "old school" MMO crowd IS the market we are trying to discern the base of. We can't, rationally at least, on one hand, say there is "no market" for this "old school MMO" and then, on the other hand say "Brad only raised this absorbent amount of money because he's so well known in the marketwe don't believe exists". (Comparing it to Bill Clinton is completely disingenuous as Bill Clinton's name obviouslypenetratesmarket boundaries (hah, pun inended) and has a global recognition. That's just silly. Mcqauid is only popular among averyspecific market.)

Again, as I said above. You're going to run into some statistical abnormalities because of this particular markets zealotry, sure. I'm not going to argue with you there but I seriously doubt that was the cause ofallof this (maybe some..). It would be just as silly for you to assume that, as it would be for a fanboy to assume the market for this was as big as say, a WoW game.

The fact is, a KS campaign with no actual marketing or planned social media campaign getting more than 10k dollars and more than 500 backers? IsEXTREMELYrare, even with a great product. Usually when a non-marketed KS can do that? It means the market for it is very strong. The fact it was able to do that, even with low quality "signals" on top of those other lacking points? Screams to me that this type of game probably has a decent community/market (Not huge, but big enough for an indi) but this presentation wassopoorly done only the super-faithful donated. Making other arguments? Relies on essentially assuming these human beings function differently than anyone else on some deep psychological level. (And while thatCOULDbe true, in some way, because yes these are some nutty people, lol---I'm sure it's not the "total" answer.)

Furious_sl said:

Ozzy fails every time he tries to speak words.

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Oh, that's only the lifetime of organic brain damage.

Ozzy succeeds every day he's not dead.

I mean seriously, what the fuck. The man is a greek god. He should have died decades ago.

Xaxius_sl said:

You think that's cool? Check this out...

Spoiler

Project 1999 - View Single Post - My 3D EQ Fan-art

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The other ones were better. These look a little too much like a Claymation special background.

Someone posting they are proud they donated more than they make in a week , and that week's pay is very little , I'm sure followed by hurrah's on the forum , lets me know just how cultish this thing is , and is going to be.

Course , I expect Brad to thank said poster for donating rent money and to encourage the flock to do more.

Not sure if he's more Jim Jones or Jim Bakker.

They need TAPPY!

In almost every post you have made recently you keep quoting about how this campaign made $400k dollars. Lets be clear here in the fact that they did not raise one single cent with this kickstarter. No one risked one dime in this campaign since it didn't come close to funding. Anyone could have "donated" any amount of money to this campaign and not risked ever being charged since there was not a snowballs chance in hell it would hit the $800k mark.

The fact that this $800k was supposed to be for setting up a studio and it miraculously changed to the $800k is to backpay his staff for work over the past 6 months is laughable. In 6 months they didn't accomplish jack shit and they want this crowdfunding to back pay themselves for doing nothing? Get a fucking clue.

The rabid old Everquest cult that will swallow everything he says is a small one. What was supposed to be so revolutionary about this title? Not a fucking thing. Everything people claimed to want got mysteriously changed every 10 minutes. People wanted hard travel, but then Brad stated there would be a dungeon finder or something similar to WoWs retard rocks. People claiming they wanted tough death penalties, yet you can either wait to be raised or click a spirit healer to raise yourself with a small penalty, just like WoW again. So what is supposed to be this super appeal for whatever Brad is working on since every 10 to 15 minutes they change what they want to do. There is no clear vision or guidance on what should be or should not be in the game and they are just throwing a ton of shit to a wall and hoping something sticks. Even the fucking screenshots they finally released could be done on that particular engine in a matter of 30 minutes if you knew what you were doing, or 1-2 hours if you were just learning.

I applaud Brad for finding a way to fleece money out of people by charging a subscription fee on a forum though. Its obvious that he is broke and in need of financial assistance as well as the rest of his staff that has been basically booted out of the industry. The dude is a washed up scrub that has repeatedly fucked up everything he ever touched past Everquest coming out at the right time. What made Everquest the success it was was the fact that many people found a way to play the content in ways that the development team never intended. Quadding, kiting, reverse kiting, pet kiting, feign death pulling, mob splitting, and about a dozen other features that people so fondly remember were in fact never intended gameplay mechanics anyways and Brad said so himself.

The market for such a game today like people remember is very small and certainly not worth the estimated $8m-$10m they need to invest in it. The circle jerk here reminds me of the house full of people all wearing Nikes and killing themselves in a mansion thinking it was Gods will, or the cult of people that all drank poisoned Kool-Aid because Jesus commanded them to do it. You can find a small group of retards anywhere you go and this is no exception.

Tide27_sl said:

In almost every post you have made recently you keep quoting about how this campaign made $400k dollars. Lets be clear here in the fact that they did not raise one single cent with this kickstarter. No one risked one dime in this campaign since it didn't come close to funding. Anyone could have "donated" any amount of money to this campaign and not risked ever being charged since there was not a snowballs chance in hell it would hit the $800k mark.

The fact that this $800k was supposed to be for setting up a studio and it miraculously changed to the $800k is to backpay his staff for work over the past 6 months is laughable. In 6 months they didn't accomplish jack shit and they want this crowdfunding to back pay themselves for doing nothing? Get a fucking clue.

The rabid old Everquest cult that will swallow everything he says is a small one. What was supposed to be so revolutionary about this title? Not a fucking thing. Everything people claimed to want got mysteriously changed every 10 minutes. People wanted hard travel, but then Brad stated there would be a dungeon finder or something similar to WoWs retard rocks. People claiming they wanted tough death penalties, yet you can either wait to be raised or click a spirit healer to raise yourself with a small penalty, just like WoW again. So what is supposed to be this super appeal for whatever Brad is working on since every 10 to 15 minutes they change what they want to do. There is no clear vision or guidance on what should be or should not be in the game and they are just throwing a ton of shit to a wall and hoping something sticks. Even the fucking screenshots they finally released could be done on that particular engine in a matter of 30 minutes if you knew what you were doing, or 1-2 hours if you were just learning.

I applaud Brad for finding a way to fleece money out of people by charging a subscription fee on a forum though. Its obvious that he is broke and in need of financial assistance as well as the rest of his staff that has been basically booted out of the industry. The dude is a washed up scrub that has repeatedly fucked up everything he ever touched past Everquest coming out at the right time. What made Everquest the success it was was the fact that many people found a way to play the content in ways that the development team never intended. Quadding, kiting, reverse kiting, pet kiting, feign death pulling, mob splitting, and about a dozen other features that people so fondly remember were in fact never intended gameplay mechanics anyways and Brad said so himself.

The market for such a game today like people remember is very small and certainly not worth the estimated $8m-$10m they need to invest in it. The circle jerk here reminds me of the house full of people all wearing Nikes and killing themselves in a mansion thinking it was Gods will, or the cult of people that all drank poisoned Kool-Aid because Jesus commanded them to do it. You can find a small group of retards anywhere you go and this is no exception.

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YESSIR

Damn you

I don't know why it's thought that EQ enthusiasts are some unique market segment. Do you know how many passionate people exist for probably every single KS that has both succeeded and failed? There are grown men with My Little Pony collections. To analyze this KS in particular based on some idea of an exceptionally rabid fanbase compared to others is very myopic (and negligible for comparative analysis). This KS failed because of the contents of the KS. There is a market for another EverQuest.

kudos_sl said:

This guy spends more than he earns in a week on this fucking bullshit.

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That's the troll from the Kickstarter comments that kept making wild accusations about me. They also managed to piss off EQOANostaliga by accusing him of secretly being an employee of SOE and was referred to in his 12 minutes blame game video. Seriously that person is by far the worst of them all.

Dumar_sl said:

I don't know why it's thought that EQ enthusiasts are some unique market segment. Do you know how many passionate people exist for probably every single KS that has both succeeded and failed? There are grown men with My Little Pony collections. To analyze this KS in particular based on some idea of an exceptionally rabid fanbase compared to others is very myopic (and negligible for comparative analysis). This KS failed because of the contents of the KS. There is a market for another EverQuest.

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I will not disagree with the statement that there is a market for another Everquest. What I would disagree with is the fact that there would be enough of a market for an Everquest type game to justify a $8m-$10m investment for such a small niche market. I have been in the industry over a decade now and shipped many titles. It would be a very difficult sell to try to find investors to spend this type of money for such a small niche market. There is massive chance for never seeing any ROI on a game like this with those types of numbers tossed around and there is a very remote chance that anyone would be willing to risk $10m into a project that has such a high chance of failure in the marketplace.

Brad leading this team sure the hell doesn't help his case either. He is not well liked or respected in the industry and has a proven track record of failing at pretty much everything he has attempted. Doesn't help him that he has burned many bridges in the industry either. While certain people maintain political correctness on social media , there is a reason he has no job.

Tide27_sl said:

In almost every post you have made recently you keep quoting about how this campaign made $400k dollars. Lets be clear here in the fact that they did not raise one single cent with this kickstarter. No one risked one dime in this campaign since it didn't come close to funding. Anyone could have "donated" any amount of money to this campaign and not risked ever being charged since there was not a snowballs chance in hell it would hit the $800k mark.

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I said raised, I was pretty clear in my word choice. Here, let me quote my first post.

The game raised 450k (Well 400k really) despite being nothing more than a napkin covered in a splooge of random and unrefined ideas by a team of unemployed guys with only vague and nebulous claims of "hard core" and "99" thrown in. And you're somehow looking at that huge number, despite this incoherent showing, as proof no market exists? Okay.

(Hmm, does that seem like a brad circle jerk to you? Everyone here seems to be negative, including me. I'm not sure what board you're reading.)

Tide27_sl said:

The rabid old Everquest cult that will swallow everything he says is a small one.

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Who is being more "rabid", the idiot fanboys who claim this wasn't a failure? Or people like you who are peeling back statistical trends just to blame them on the fanboys?

You have to see there is a middle ground out there, right? As I said before, the pitch design was crap (And I know a thing or two about pitches). I wasnota donator, and I'm not one of the people that thinks EQ re-skinned would make a good game. I'm also one of the few people in that thread that openly says things like "WoW" is a good game. So I agree with all your criticisms about Brad and him essentially throwing napkin notes of design ideas at people hoping to bilk them out of money.

The difference is I'm not bitter about him being a snake oil salesmen, either (You might be because you take affronts to the industry personally due to your work in it). I can take a step back and view this with some impartiality, without thinking I have to take "a side" in some stupid fight between the "I told you so people" and "the fanboys". If you understand anything of how KS's typically fund? The moment that got about 25% funding, EVERYONE who put money in was looking at a potential loss because the VAST majority of projects that get that on the first few days reach their goal.

And all I said was, the fact that this got 3k backers, with such a poor campaign and terrible marketing strategy and NO product or product video? Probably shows that the actual community would have to be pretty large due to the usual population drop off between community and "donators". Typically, a group of "donators" in a KS campaign, is a small part of the overall community for the Campaign--so you can usually get a feel for the size of the market out there. And again, this quality campaign was absolute dog shit...So it speaks to me of a fairly sizable market. Again, not a triple A market but smaller one? Sure.

Tide27_sl said:

The market for such a game today like people remember is very small and certainly not worth the estimated $8m-$10m they need to invest in it. The circle jerk here reminds me of the house full of people all wearing Nikes and killing themselves in a mansion thinking it was Gods will, or the cult of people that all drank poisoned Kool-Aid because Jesus commanded them to do it. You can find a small group of retards anywhere you go and this is no exception.

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Cults can be formed around hating something as much as loving something. You should probably remember that for your future health before you drink more of the Kool Aid and convince yourself the other side is the anti-christ and you need to prove it.

And again, I'm not defending Brad...But I'm really curious where you see a circle jerk? Most people here have been making fun of him, myself included. I also, and I can't say this enough, think Brad got lucky with EQ by accident, it wasn't some grand vision (I said this in the other thread, too).Butboth of those things won't lead me to deny that the numbers were fucking astonishing and abnormal. And most likely that's because a very strong niche market exists for this game, given everything we know about KS.

Youcan say that this group is akin to a cult, and the reason the numbers were abnormal or the campaign was huge compared to the average KS was not due to the typical trends we see in KS but because this group of people were just different on a fundamental level....but then who sounds like they are forming an opinion of nothing but faith?

Tide27_sl said:

I will not disagree with the statement that there is a market for another Everquest. What I would disagree with is the fact that there would be enough of a market for an Everquest type game to justify a $8m-$10m investment for such a small niche market. I have been in the industry over a decade now and shipped many titles. It would be a very difficult sell to try to find investors to spend this type of money for such a small niche market. There is massive chance for never seeing any ROI on a game like this with those types of numbers tossed around and there is a very remote chance that anyone would be willing to risk $10m into a project that has such a high chance of failure in the marketplace.

Brad leading this team sure the hell doesn't help his case either. He is not well liked or respected in the industry and has a proven track record of failing at pretty much everything he has attempted. Doesn't help him that he has burned many bridges in the industry either. While certain people maintain political correctness on social media , there is a reason he has no job.

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Well, if you read my posts you might have said yourself a reply then. Here, let me quote them for you.

Lithose_sl said:

Sceams to me that this type of game probably has a decent community/market(Not huge, but big enough for an indi)but this presentation wassopoorly done only the super-faithful donated. Making other arguments? Relies on essentially assuming these human beings function differently than anyone else on some deep psychological level. (And while thatCOULDbe true, in some way, because yes these are some nutty people, lol---I'm sure it's not the "total" answer.)

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Lithose_sl said:

Brad was that salesmen. The fact that he got 3k people, and 400k dollars, with such a bad campaign? Speaks to me of a market being out there.Again, I wouldn't be confident enough to say "its big enough for a triple A MMO!"...but it's certainly big enough for an indi project, I believe. (Again though, just my opinion).

But yeah, I totally agree with you; after this and Vanguard, it's not going to be Brad that's the vehicle to tap this market.

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Also, if you do work in the industry, then you know know the rights most Publishers require in terms of IP ownership. The reason why investors won't invest in even solid games are numerous. Pitching a niche game to investors is dead on arrival. But I already said essentially what you said as well.

Lithose_sl said:

Most investors wouldn't even touch games with all that. Games just aren't good investments for equity rights in the producing the game, the risk is too high to offset the very small chance at possible gains. This is why publishers essentially require studios to sell their souls for any investment.

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Anyway, before you rant at me (And I assume it was), you should read my posts. I don't like retreading conservations just to go over points I already agree with. (And I'm mainly talking about the post I have quoted above; which was a rant about how I've been "circle jerking" Brad...I don't even know where the fuck that came from. The only thing I've been doing is giving an analysis without a huge hard on for one side or the other in this debate.)