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

shabushabu

Molten Core Raider
1,408
185
No. They implied and let people think they had a 'full team' and more people ready to get on board and have been working full time for 6 months pro bono. And good point/question, because now we know they were misleading us and flat out didn't have a full team. Had they actually admitted they only had 3 people doing work, and a community manager, and not one of those people was an actual artist, I don't think the KS campaign would have gone even as well as it didn't.

But, yeah, they didn't say the number of devs. They were instead very vague and misleading. Then again, they're mmorpg experts, not being honest with their own backer experts.
Indeed. "Work" could mean anything from "thought about this on weekends" to actually building something...
 

Arden

Blackwing Lair Raider
2,649
1,941
22 years ago I wrote on paper with a friend a pen & paper RPG system that we played for a decade, it took months and we did it between classes at the engineering university. We wrote so much and designed so much because we worked on it with anenergy and a passionthat today I don't even know where to find it (we copied shit left and right, it's not that we reinvented the wheel, but it was really fun).

Some of these guys have been working on this game for a while and they have... nothing to show for it?
To be honest, I think one of the reasons they have nothing to show for it is because the VR team is missing the same things that you guys had 22 years ago- energy (or inspiration) and passion to make a game. McQuaid has passion- that much is certain. But it seems like he is more passionate about theideaof creating a game than he is about the actual game itself.

When you built that RPG system years ago, I guarantee that you had all sorts of great ideas just bursting at the seams trying to get out of you. The game was just the framework that contained and compartmentalized all those ideas. McQuaid has kind of done the opposite by focusing on putting up the framework and now he is struggling to fill it with ideas.

The problem is that what goes inside the house is more important than the frame of the house- and it?s the stuff that goes inside the house that you can?t fake. Anyone with the technical know-how and the resources can build that frame, but only passion and inspiration can fill it.
 

zzeris

King Turd of Shit Hill
<Gold Donor>
18,942
73,956
Indeed. "Work" could mean anything from "thought about this on weekends" to actually building something...
Usually, when you want back-pay, you have something to show for it. Usually, when even ONE person is working on something for 6 months, they can figure out how their primary funding source works while also having some basic concepts, artwork, etc fleshed out. Sure, if I was a scam artist, I'd consider dreaming up how I'd fleece people as work too. It's his job, right?
 

Merlin_sl

shitlord
2,329
1
It won't matter with this particular brand of crazy. Anybody with a brain recognizes Vanguard as a horrible abortion, yet it doesn't prevent these very same people from lavishing praise upon it. "Man, if only it wasn't a bug-ridden, incomplete mess, it totally would've been awesome guys! The underlying systems were sooooo good! The potential was there!". The best outcome is Brad continuing to fleece these people for a few hundred thousand every year. I'm genuinely curious how long he can ride the train of crazy.
Its quite obvious you never played Vanguard and if you did, not for more than a couple weeks at most. It nowhere near as bad as you are making it out to be. I'm all for hating on Brad about this kickstarter and thefailwebsite, but your way off base on your judgement of Vanguard. Honestly, it sounds like you've never played and just read what people were saying 6 years ago.

Its FTP. Create a character, run around, give it a try. Its actually quite fun and beautiful. Excellent music, classes, quests, and fun combat. Does it still hitch? Yep, like a motherfucker. But give it a try, I think you'll find its not as bad as your making it out to be.
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
19,888
13,402
Its quite obvious you never played Vanguard and if you did, not for more than a couple weeks at most. It nowhere near as bad as you are making it out to be. I'm all for hating on Brad about this kickstarter and thefailwebsite, but your way off base on your judgement of Vanguard. Honestly, it sounds like you've never played and just read what people were saying 6 years ago.
Just because you were willing to put up with how atrocious it was at release and stuck around after it was "fixed" doesn't mean it wasn't a terrible game. I was in the beta. I tried desperately to play it for about 2 weeks. It was almost unplayable and that isn't even debatable. If I put shit on a toasted brioche bun and top it with herbed goat cheese and a caramelized onion and bacon jam it's still a shit sandwich.

Brad had nothing to do with where Vanguard went, he was long "gone" before the game even launched. But he was responsible for how atrocious the game was at launch.
 

Tol_sl

shitlord
759
0
Vanguard's launch was so fucking bad that I think even if they did fix the hitching and other issues, it would never recover based on that month-1 rep alone. It's pretty difficult for an MMO to make a comeback after a failed launch, and needs a ton of word of mouth and a way to lure people back.
 

shabushabu

Molten Core Raider
1,408
185
Just because you were willing to put up with how atrocious it was at release and stuck around after it was "fixed" doesn't mean it wasn't a terrible game. I was in the beta. I tried desperately to play it for about 2 weeks. It was almost unplayable and that isn't even debatable. If I put shit on a toasted brioche bun and top it with herbed goat cheese and a caramelized onion and bacon jam it's still a shit sandwich.

Brad had nothing to do with where Vanguard went, he was long "gone" before the game even launched. But he was responsible for how atrocious the game was at launch.
Crazy thing is I never had 1 technical problem with vanguard other than hitching.. go figure. Your last statement contradicts itself.. If Brad was long gone and checked out, how the hell is he to blame for the condition at release ?

The reason the thing was fucked at release was because it was not ready and SOE who funded and then bought them, forced it.
 

arallu

Golden Knight of the Realm
536
47
They've bought goblins now..
https://www.pantheonrotf.com/blogs/3...ure-the-goblin
1af9_0d73.jpg
 

Kirun

Buzzfeed Editor
<Gold Donor>
18,743
34,944
Its quite obvious you never played Vanguard and if you did, not for more than a couple weeks at most. It nowhere near as bad as you are making it out to be. I'm all for hating on Brad about this kickstarter and thefailwebsite, but your way off base on your judgement of Vanguard. Honestly, it sounds like you've never played and just read what people were saying 6 years ago.

Its FTP. Create a character, run around, give it a try. Its actually quite fun and beautiful. Excellent music, classes, quests, and fun combat. Does it still hitch? Yep, like a motherfucker. But give it a try, I think you'll find its not as bad as your making it out to be.
You see? Your honor, the defense rests..

I was ahugeVanguard fanboy during beta. Ut and I used to get into it all the time about it(I think he posted a screenshot earlier in the thread, showing one of our back and forths). Then it released and I saw how right he was...
 

Frenzic

Lord Nagafen Raider
884
61
I've been in contact with the PR guy for Pantheon, Ben. We briefly discussed what has been going on over here at Rerolled. The reason they have gone silent is that they feel that they can no longer reach anything positive over here. They do in fact read this thread from time to time. Instead of burning time trying to convince haters, they want to spend time giving information to those that actually want it. Makes sense and I can't really blame them.

With that said, Ben has agreed to do a quasi interview with me. I will take questions from this thread or PM and I will try my best to get them answered. Obviously they aren't deep into development so many questions cannot be answered. If you're afraid of being flamed, just PM me the question instead of posting, I will keep your anonymity.

If this goes well, I can snag more as time goes on. Ben has had a pretty open dialog with me so far.
 
I'm not sure he confidently grasps what an Angel investor really is.

Angel investors are the bridge between Seed capital and Venture capital. Yes they typically do "know what you're doing" or in other words are familiar with your industry, but they require equity in ownership or bonds. In addition to financing they provide business guidance, networking contacts and a bunch of other non-tangible resources. They also use their own money whereas VC's typically use shared money. Oh, and Angel's also do a fuck ton of due diligence.

I can't imagine any serious Angel, after doing the due diligence on this game and VR investing any large sum of money. AI's take the most risk of any investor; their shit gets diluted to all hell in future rounds of VC and bridge funding and thus they typically demand large chunks of ownership and an exit strategy written in stone.

A trust funder who wants to donate $50k for some nebulous reward is not an Angel investor. If they really do have proper AI's lined up, then good for them, but I'm skeptical.

No, I'm not an MBA or any crap. I just worked through about 5 big tech startups from seed to bust, mostly in the dot-com era and had the opportunity to be involved in the process each step of the way.