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

I'm having weird d?j? Vu. Is this thread repeating itself? Again?

Soygen_sl said:

Get used to it. This is all we have to really do/say on this topic for another 6 or 7 years.

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Fucking Christ I hope EQN is compelling.

mkopec_sl said:

Thats not my point, dude. Im with you on that above point. I just dont agree with the entire ripping off shit and doing nothing part, thats all.

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I'm not sure how to make it more clear without making stupid analogies. This isn't on a general level where MUDs took from tabletop games and then EQ took from MUDs. And WOW took from EQ. This is more like EQ took essentially identical class mechanics, game systems, combat mechanics, group mechanics, etc. etc. directly from that MUD.

I mean seriously, who the fuck is saying "did nothing part"? He essentially ported over SojournMUD into a 3D world. The act of creating a 3D world was a major fucking step in the industry and I'll give him and his company all the credit in the world for doing that.

I wonder if they are counting the number of supporters as the number of members on the site vs. people that actually gave them money. The site has a total of 907 yet the counter says 897. I have a hard time believing only 10 people who registered didn't give them anything.

So roughly 900 folks , the hardcore have blown their wad, and gotten it to a decent total for that quick. Anyone that did 250 or over is now on the development team (what a fucking joke of a title ) and pays no more sub fees to be in the developer forum. 100 or more and they have permanent access to all the other forums with no sub fee either.

He has a team of what 12 including himself ? He's to have actual people that do real work besides Vu , so let's say a super small team of 20 is needed at minimum and quickly.

Unless they are all roomies in a house , live at home with mom , or similar , that 118 is gone inside two months , and a couple hundred people donating 15 more a month doesn't make it last much longer.

Let's not forget the salary of a real CEO because Brad's proven he can't run a lemonade stand.

After Brad blatantly lying about not abandoning the Kickstarter , Sal not even knowing what a class was in the game , and the blatherings of the inner circle on the KS forum turning on anyone who didn't suck Brad off , I hope this makes McQuaid even more of a joke than he is right now and it goes into flames fast and publicly.

I feel stupid for thinking he deserved a chance at the beginning of the KS , now I simply see him as an idiot and a liar. Not really sure how anyone could not judge his past two months as anything else.

Draegan_sl said:

He essentially ported over SojournMUD into a 3D world. The act of creating a 3D world was a major fucking step in the industry and I'll give him and his company all the credit in the world for doing that.

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He was ahead of his time then. I'm surprised you guys aren't picketing Zynga for their evils, because what they do makes what VI did seem small time. Games nowadays are copied wholesale down to the color palettes from already existing games; a 3d MUD did not exist until EQ, and they did not rip off a 3d MUD.

Ideas are cheap. Any long time gamer can come up with all sorts of good ideas. I thought up lots of stuff I later saw in new games released years later-- that doesn't make me some sort of genius game designer. 99% of the work is making the damn thing and delivering a product to market, and VI did what nobody else was even attempting at the time. They pulled it off.

Likewise, nobody else seems interested in making a classic EQ successor. Brad and co are the only ones even trying to do it. I would think people who loved EQ would cut him more slack. (although his later comments about radar and dungeon finders concern me) I don't give a fuck if it looks like stock unity assets and if they cloned the shit out of Sojourn if they can deliver a damn product I can actually play.

As for kickstarters, what I would really like to see is SoE putting all the classic EQ assets up to PoP into the public domain. EQMac's server code, client code, all art assets up to PoP, and any PC client code from that era if they still have it. Just sell it to the public via kickstarter-- it's easy money. Let the emus go legit and be 100% accurate. This lets them charge a small fee so they can quit their jobs and devote all their time to it. If you want EQ remade in a modern engine, that's the best thing that could happen. Of course it's laughably implausible that SoE would do that but I'll propose the idea anyway.

Dahkoht_sl said:

So roughly 900 folks , the hardcore have blown their wad, and gotten it to a decent total for that quick. Anyone that did 250 or over is now on the development team (what a fucking joke of a title ) and pays no more sub fees to be in the developer forum. 100 or more and they have permanent access to all the other forums with no sub fee either.

He has a team of what 12 including himself ? He's to have actual people that do real work besides Vu , so let's say a super small team of 20 is needed at minimum and quickly.

Unless they are all roomies in a house , live at home with mom , or similar , that 118 is gone inside two months , and a couple hundred people donating 15 more a month doesn't make it last much longer.

Let's not forget the salary of a real CEO because Brad's proven he can't run a lemonade stand.

After Brad blatantly lying about not abandoning the Kickstarter , Sal not even knowing what a class was in the game , and the blatherings of the inner circle on the KS forum turning on anyone who didn't suck Brad off , I hope this makes McQuaid even more of a joke than he is right now and it goes into flames fast and publicly.

I feel stupid for thinking he deserved a chance at the beginning of the KS , now I simply see him as an idiot and a liar. Not really sure how anyone could not judge his past two months as anything else.

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I dont feel stupid about it, tbh. They outlined a game I might want to play, I showed interested by waiving some dollar bills and asked for details ... they acted like The Three Stooges for a few weeks and I quietly put away my money. I dont think that's entirely out of line to do if you want that kind of game. Now if you are still on the hype train now you are very likely delusional or a statistical outlier of sane but still invested people like Convo or Arctic.

Draegan_sl said:

I'm not sure how to make it more clear without making stupid analogies. This isn't on a general level where MUDs took from tabletop games and then EQ took from MUDs. And WOW took from EQ. This is more like EQ took essentially identical class mechanics, game systems, combat mechanics, group mechanics, etc. etc. directly from that MUD.
.

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Actually, it is. The classes of Sojourn are from AD&D. The combat mechanics are from AD&D (H2u roll for damage or events). The level system is from AD&D. The forced grouping is from... yes, AD&D. The game itself just leverages the DIKU code base which is a hack and slash system which EQ, WOW, and UO and half the RPGs ever created pretty much derived from in one way or another. That is not from Sojourn. You can argue MMOs owe a ton of their systems to DIKU, and I'd agree. The parts EQ took that Sojourn was known for if memory serves are the death penalty (stupid), forced grouping (stupid), and some social things (actually decent). Sojourn also was ass. I'm glad you enjoyed it but there were far better alternatives out there for me. I'm not sure ANY of the design decisions of the original Sojourn are even in EQ anymore.

Anyways, if porting a killer game to 3D were easy, someone would've done a Dwarf Fortress MMO and made a mint.

Was playing Ardwulf MUDD at work. I think it's DIKU based with a ton of modifications. It surprised me how close it was to a graphical 3D MMO like EQ, the only thing I thought was missing was the 3D element. There's even an autoattack and you occasional submit a skill to run. There's about 300 people who still play it which is a lot for a MUDD.

Soygen_sl said:

The 10 people they aren't counting are the 10 people working on the project. 897 regular members, so yeah...they are counting total members.

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Heh, I'd actually guess that the site is only updated daily/manually.
The count is still at 897, with 921 actualmembers
Also, it looks like ~590 are non-pay, (light-blue names), and roughly ~320 to have paid (blue, orange, purple names) with the vast majority orange ($250+).
I'd guess the average per backer is siting in the $380-$390 range, but ya that 'supporter' count if it was actual payers would be much lower.

Edit: Bored so: KS had 3157 backers, with only ~320 paid members thats only ~10% of the KS that went and paid on their site.