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

Convo

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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I will say that the occasional post from Brad and Ben have turned some threads.. But they can't be everywhere at once.. imo theyve done a great job stepping up their game.
 

Flake

Golden Knight of the Realm
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HeroEngine is fkn shit, nuf said. Look what happens in SWOTR when there is more than 5 people on the screen.
 

Merlin_sl

shitlord
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I will say that the occasional post from Brad and Ben have turned some threads.. But they can't be everywhere at once.. imo theyve done a great job stepping up their game.
The entire team has turned it around. They are rocking and rolling. And you can tell by the pledges. Steady as shit when I thought it was about to die.
 
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The entire team has turned it around. They are rocking and rolling. And you can tell by the pledges. Steady as shit when I thought it was about to die.
Absolutely. The outreach is really making a difference!
smile.png
 

LordLime_sl

shitlord
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No loss, having worked with hero engine, you would have completely gutted it and wrote your own anyway. There is a reason why Hero's Journey never shipped.
PBG had some serious issues with the engine to where Simu had to fly their own Engineers down to assist with development.
Unfortunately due to those issues PBG ran out of funding and had to close up shop.
 

gogojira_sl

shitlord
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They really have kicked it into high gear. Ikik dropped by for a post on the player-ran servers over at pjpantheon.

Corey seems like a really likable dude, too. Had a few conversations with him on Twitter and our exchanges had me wanting to throw in more money.
 

Merlin_sl

shitlord
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HeroEngine is fkn shit, nuf said. Look what happens in SWOTR when there is more than 5 people on the screen.
No offense, but you have no clue what your talking about. They heavily modified that engine and like Vanguard, fucked it up. That's not all the fault of the Hero engine.
 

Schags

Bronze Knight of the Realm
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No offense, but you have no clue what your talking about. They heavily modified that engine and like Vanguard, fucked it up. That's not all the fault of the Hero engine.
They had to heavily modify it just to get it to work for the game to ship. The engine is not a turn key engine. You end up gutting all of the code out of it and re-writing it because it's terrible.
 

Vandyn

Blackwing Lair Raider
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Reading those comments highlights what kind of uphill climb Brad has. Some gamers have long memories. I think people forgot how much of a cluster Vanguard was and the massive disappointment that ensued. There are few games that had the kind of hype of Vanguard. Not only that it failed, but the way it did (and Sigil with it).
 

Muligan

Trakanon Raider
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I disagree. Because what we should be doing as gamers (and myself included in this as well) is quit buying the shoveled garbage that keeps getting spoon fed to us by relic designers that know we will at least try it, simply because we are passionate and easily taken advantage of in this space while starved for a decent game. They really couldn't care less about a successful kickstarter. They (Publishers) will look at it as a way to siphon money out of gullible gamers as a way to help fund development so they do not have too, and may be able to avoid an initial capital expense all together.

Nothing is going to change until we stop purchasing garbage and also stop ponying up for Kickstarter's while throwing feathers into 50 mile an hour headwinds hoping something flies back into Forest Gump's book. Unfortunately the end result if we actually did that (Which at this stage of quality we see today, would bankrupt the industry) are publishers not realizing the opportunity cost, but resigning the market, not caring they just destroyed it; because taking accountability is wrong in this industry. Which is why nothing ever changes.

Many people asked me in PM's what I think of this. I wish Brad all the best and I hope he has changed his life for the better. I was very vitroil with Vanguard in the past because I knew he was absolutely full of shit. Obviously now we all know that. I am vitroil with Elder Scrolls Online because I know Matt Firor and Paul Sage are absolutely full of shit. I was pissed with Rich Vogel and Gordon Walter because I knew they were full of shit. And I know that Dave Georgeson is full of shit. Notice the pattern.

Hopefully, he isn't full of shit this time. But that would be like saying any of the above learned their lessons from the past. And while I know for the fact the others won't, I am hoping after Brad's last come to Jesus, it made more of an impact. And I do not know this for sure yet, but I cannot help but think out of the response from EQ Next, that Smedley just didn't send McQuaid loose for a Kickstarter campaign knowing full well if they reach $800k, SOE will publish. As a business decision, they will have each of it's own game in the genre.

FYI: Anyone that offers more than $40 for this on Kickstarter, or any Kickstarter for that matter, is certifiably insane and should have their internet taken away by court order.
Ut... i'm with you in all your points. Seriously. Everything you said is business sense and even common sense but then again, this is another way the internet has closed the gap and broadened the scope on an everyday practice.

Example... I had a kid come knock on my door and he was looking for funding to study abroad in China. I knew the kid and also knew he had worked for months to supplement the money his parents could afford to give him but still came up short. Thus, he went to the community. We helped him out what little bit we could and while it was really supporting a good cause I can think of numerous occasions people have presented me opportunities from religious to business and I either contributed or not.

Probably the more relevant example... It was just the other night I was watching Andy Griffith (sorry, I love the show) and a man came into town looking for local talent to make a record. Some people couldn't sing and they wanted some way to get involved. They invested so the gentlemen could make the record and in turn hoping to get a little something in return.

You have to also consider that Brad is giving investors a copy of the game. So it is not like he's asking you to fund the game and then turn around and buy it. This is no different than any other investment venture. I did this same thing with a local OrangeLeaf. I helped bring the franchise into our town but guess who's paying for yogurt every week? Heck, the primary owner pays for yogurt. We get 10% off... that's it and everyone involved still has full time jobs so it's not like we are making a living at it. We just wanted to do something nice for the town, the people, kids, and we let people get involved to make it less of a financial burden and people banned together because of what it would provide the community overall. I guess people were willing to pay to let it be our headache.

Kickstarter just took this principle and widened the scope and people are taking advantage of the opportunity in attempt to fund anything and everything but here's the beauty... regardless of the situation not one of us have to give. If you want to, it's ok. If you find it against your principles, that's fine. Sometimes products just do not happen. Not everyone can be backed by some major investor. If someone has an idea, they have to get family involved, friends, acquaintances, neighbors, whatever to get it off the ground. Kickstarter is just the virtual version of knocking on someone's door.
 

Merlin_sl

shitlord
2,329
1
Reading those comments highlights what kind of uphill climb Brad has. Some gamers have long memories. I think people forgot how much of a cluster Vanguard was and the massive disappointment that ensued.
As my wife pointed out, 95% of these people have no clue what they are even talking about. "They heard from a friend who had a friend who knew a guy who said Brad was a piece of shit for Vanguard", and they roll with that.
 

Convo

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
8,792
664
The people who post that kind of stuff have pretty much made up their mind...When Brad responds he's not just trying to reach them.. He's reaching the lurker and giving his side.. Brad replies professionally so he comes out the winner in the rational persons mind who hopefully goes and donates.. Haters gonna hate.. It's part of the deal
 

Utnayan

F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
<Gold Donor>
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Hi Utnayan, good to see you.
Good to see you too. I am glad you got everything straightened out that you needed to get straightened out.

I understand why you don't want to 'pre-pay' and want to wait for the final game and then purchase. I'm sure a lot of people feel that way. That said, I think the world is changing here. People now have a chance to help make something that would be too niche for a publisher or developer to touch, at least initially.
I agree. What I do not agree with is the reward structure for those that are back funding the game without a checks and balances system to see the investment through. I also do not agree with how a publisher can step in at any moment after a cap ex Kickstarter goal gets a team going, than the revenues created from what are becoming larger and larger crowd funding opportunities go to those who never took the risk, and they see zero return financially while JQ publisher and said development team get the fiscal rewards. I know you like to make games, but let me be blunt - you also like to make money. You are creating hand crafted content. Hero Engine is designed to pump out content as fast as possible. 1) You do not need that strength. 2) You are not going to pay 7% of revenues to those folks for feature sets you will not use while having access to the source. In the end, it's about the cash. I agree with your line of thinking, I disagree with the answer you gave these folks when you said you couldn't have access to the source. Bioware, Vogel, and Walton thought they could completely re-engineer the code, ended up paying for it, but then also couldn't do it. It's amazing SWTOR even runs at all at this point, and I know that developers I know still working on the game are amazed it even compiles after patches.

Unfortunately, Kickstarter is already being abused by silent publishers. Now, if a solid, creative, original, quality game comes from Kickstarter, I may change my mind and the reward will be we have nice things. But then I look back at publishers who 1) Will reap the financial success with no risk. 2) Never greenlit the project to begin with when they should have. 3) Consumers still get nothing fiscal in return while they had everything to lose monetarily if the game never saw the light of day because frankly, they don't get any of their cash back. In my eyes, the only difference between this and the 38/RI fiasco is that the consumer has choice with Kickstarter at least.

Let's hope your game is Another Day, rather than Pull me Under. You know you will get real unmoderated replies here. IGN is a shithole. Moderated by fanboys who are bucking for positions in the industry, you and I both know this. So lots of folks would just be banned for saying anything contrary to the golden fleece rule. IGN is like 1,505 Tad10's running around with internet connections.

So, I am glad you are here. I wish you well in the game design, I hope you stick to game design over running a company. You are good at it and you created a world I enjoyed with EQ for a very long time, even as dishonest a lot of the back end was after 989/Verant was fully absorbed. I still hope Ester the Tester is out living in a tent in Siberia, and if anything, I am happy you are away from the relics at SOE (Georgeson, Danuser) that haven't the slightest fucking clue as to what they are doing.
 

Muligan

Trakanon Raider
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One thing I could always agree with Ut his his thoughts and feelings on Georgeson.

Hey Brad.. you said you referenced a Project Manager or some other staff... How comfortable is Hartsman at Trion? haha

If there were ever two people who I would really like to see take a game from the very bottom it would be Brad and Scott. The two people I need MMO closure....
 

Korrupt

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,832
1,228
Mistake or not pulling was an art and fucking awesome. Knowing what to prox / range, splitting around corners, working with other pullers in ToV and even before in PoFear was fun as hell. Just to have pulling back would be A+