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

I think the biggest time of development will be spent on the Alpha, once Beta is released it won't take over 6 months for an official launch. If Alpha indeed starts this year then a late 2019 release is not impossible, specially if they don't mind releasing the game without all the zones planned (they can still patch them every other month).

Laura said:

specially if they don't mind releasing the game without all the zones planned (they can still patch them every other month).

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Releasing with unfinished/missing content? You REALLY want this to be an EQ clone

Rhanyn said:

I've come to accept WoW as a great game, and sorely wish I hadn't been prejudiced on its release. I think I would have loved Vanilla and BC era way more than what I got later on, but I played a considerable amount of WotLK, and played the longest most recently during Legion. I still hate the general art palette and stylized graphics, but the game itself has some really great elements to it. I do think it has had way too much of an impact on the genre, but I also understand why. I think WoW originally was a lesson that was learned incorrectly, and that the industry, slowly and painfully, is starting to get the right idea from (or rather doing away with in a manner of speaking). It might take years or a decade or more, but I don't see the MMO space going away anytime soon, I'm really just hoping they have something I can sink my retirement into, in another 30 to 40 years.

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You surmise correctly. Vanilla and Burning Crusade were gaming history. Gotta say WOTLK was awesome though.

Also, these Pantheon live streams look surprisingly good.

Laura said:

I think the biggest time of development will be spent on the Alpha, once Beta is released it won't take over 6 months for an official launch. If Alpha indeed starts this year then a late 2019 release is not impossible, specially if they don't mind releasing the game without all the zones planned (they can still patch them every other month).

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Blizzard with an army of devs takes more than 6 months to beta an expansion.

You expect Pantheon, with two devs, to beta an MMO in 6 months? Polish up their netcode to handle a player base, patch any duping, warping, etc. exploits (because EQ neckbeards would never attempt any of that), and then make sure the game performs well on the typical gaming PC? You're also expecting their one 3D artist to flesh out more than two zones, add animations for playable characters, how many different armor sets, and create more mob types? Meanwhile Pantheon's legion of designers is busy writing a design doc for the Paladin class.

Shmoopy said:

You surmise correctly. Vanilla and Burning Crusade were gaming history. Gotta say WOTLK was awesome though.

Also, these Pantheon live streams look surprisingly good.

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It was towards the end of the expansion, I think right around the time they switched from advancement trees to pick a spec style, or at least that's what I remember pushing me away at the time.

yamikazo said:

Blizzard with an army of devs takes more than 6 months to beta an expansion.

You expect Pantheon, with two devs, to beta an MMO in 6 months? Polish up their netcode to handle a player base, patch any duping, warping, etc. exploits (because EQ neckbeards would never attempt any of that), and then make sure the game performs well on the typical gaming PC? You're also expecting their one 3D artist to flesh out more than two zones, add animations for playable characters, how many different armor sets, and create more mob types? Meanwhile Pantheon's legion of designers is busy writing a design doc for the Paladin class.

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This guy gets it.

You think all the tons of blizzard devs work well? Numbers do not always make work better or faster...

Pantheon could use some more, sure- but I bet they are all on a better "level" of what to do, what the aim is etc vs the cluster of blizzard

Xadion said:

You think all the tons of blizzard devs work well? Numbers do not always make work better or faster...

Pantheon could use some more, sure- but I bet they are all on a better "level" of what to do, what the aim is etc vs the cluster of blizzard

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Sure but you can't expect a company with a couple of devs and a total of 20 employees to match the schedules put forth by someone like Blizzard. That's exactly what some posters here feel should happen. It's just not reasonable.

I just hope they adhere to quality over quantity. I'd rather them get a polished, good, albeit short game out the door, than pump out a massive turd. I'd buy in, play my handful of months, and then keep coming back every so often until the game fleshed out, like I do with every other MMO I play now. I mean I'd really prefer if they would release something that keeps me hooked in for a solid 3 to 4 years minimum, but I'm not that naive anymore. If they can figure out a way to keep me chasing a carrot for a solid year or 2, I'd be happy as can be. With a smaller team, I expect several larger annoyances, at least a score of serious to severe bugs, and an exploit or 7, so they have to have atmosphere, group play, class play, and a solid PVE draw (whether that be story, gear whoring, exploration, etc) or this thing is gonna make Vanguard (read the Hindenburg) look like a kid burning ants with a magnifying glass in his back yard.

I really want this to be something, and it looks very promising, so much so that I've considered popping into the $100 tier. But I still can't bring myself to it, not till I see they have something that WILL release, because at this point they are showing a little more (maybe) than what Schillings mess produced. I mean to be honest, the only thing in mind that would qualify as a someday guarantee return to MMO's, is that Blizzard will eventually recycle WoW or launch something to take its place.

zzeris said:

Great post. This game will be a disaster if they don't spend at least a year in beta. They don't even have all the classes made and we have people thinking this might release in 2019-2020. Not even close. If this pops out before 2022, it will probably still be unfinished with a strong possibility of broken, population ending bugs. It's not like Vanguard didn't have tons of money poured in, lots of developers, and still pulled off franchise destroying bugs. Sounds like a solid idea to release in 2019...glad they aren't doing that.

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Vanguard and Rift both had raid exploits that made raiding a total joke when they released raids. Even though there was 10 exploits in each game the ones that broke the games were Vanguard had a BloodMage exploit and Rift had the reflect boss abilities which made it through raid testing. That's what happens when you have small, private, secretive raid testing and 95% of us guilds testing were doing it to get an advantage for world first. I already see some of the same guilds who raid test other mmo's including the one we're joining so hoping they really take their time and prioritize quality > getting a game out of the door.

What's with all the WoW salt? We'd be stuck hitting auto attack and doing nothing for raids if WoW didn't come around and completely change the raiding game. Their system of LFR -> Normal -> Mythic is perfect where anyone from a mouthbreather to veterans can experience raiding.

Valderen said:

There's a different between developing WoW and Pantheon though, Pantheon is not a quests based game. I'm not sure how much of WoW development is spent on writing and implementing quests compared to building a zone, populating with mobs and itemizing it, but it's something Pantheon is not doing much off. It's probably going to allow for much faster development in any case.

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In WoW development it's basically everyone in the company who come together and write quests. There is very little developer time on it.

Korrupt said:

Vanguard and Rift both had raid exploits that made raiding a total joke when they released raids. Even though there was 10 exploits in each game the ones that broke the games were Vanguard had a BloodMage exploit and Rift had the reflect boss abilities which made it through raid testing. That's what happens when you have small, private, secretive raid testing and 95% of us guilds testing were doing it to get an advantage for world first. I already see some of the same guilds who raid test other mmo's including the one we're joining so hoping they really take their time and prioritize quality > getting a game out of the door.

What's with all the WoW salt? We'd be stuck hitting auto attack and doing nothing for raids if WoW didn't come around and completely change the raiding game. Their system of LFR -> Normal -> Mythic is perfect where anyone from a mouthbreather to veterans can experience raiding.

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For all the things WoW does that pushes me away, incorporating LFR>Normal>Mythic is definitely one of the best things they've brought to the table. Most games have copied this, SWTOR has Story FP/Ops as well as Veteran and Master difficulties, and I've even seen it in non standard MMO settings, to great affect. It's extremely helpful for learning fights and experiencing content that would essentially be locked if it was Mythic level only.

Noble Savage said:

Brad sounds like he is so wasted in every stream.

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This, mentioned it before. He must be on some type of sub.

FInally a fun chanter, (looking at you eq2) i'm hyped.

What they need... are Stallions

mkopec said:

Chances are that they get some infusion of cash now that they have a bit more to show than some 10 art pieces, 1 page of lolore and a document. The more of the game they have to show, the more chance for some real investors to come in and, well, there is your 30 more devs and 20 in house testers. Etc...Etc...

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I am guessing you are right in this. Looking at their team roster I am guessing that Chris Rowan was their angel investor that got them this far, but now they actually have a (somewhat) functional model with a decent amount of hype around it, it is pretty safe to say they will probably attract some actual working capitol to hire some Jr. devs to help implement their various systems.

Xadion said:

You think all the tons of blizzard devs work well? Numbers do not always make work better or faster...

Pantheon could use some more, sure- but I bet they are all on a better "level" of what to do, what the aim is etc vs the cluster of blizzard

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Of course a massive bureaucracy isn't the epitome of efficiency. Having 300 developers in 50 different chains of command who spend hours in useless boring meetings each week isn't getting everything done as fast as it could.

The reason why there's such a stark difference between the Pantheon fanboys and everyone else is you're delusional enough to think that Pantheon's 2 developers can do more work than Blizzard's 300. So long as you live in a reality where one 3D artist and two developers can produce a successful MMO, you're in for a huge disappointment and you'll continue to turn off more onlookers.

It's a shame, because I imagine that a lot of us who live in reality want to throw money at Brad's 40,000 page design document. What we see is Vanguard all over again, except with less oversight and no pile of cash – fantastic ideas, created by a visionary who designs content we enjoy, but without resources to develop them off the page and onto our computer screens. It's easy to buy into the vision of Pantheon – and it ought to be since 1) the man behind the vision likely created your favorite MMO world, 2) 90% or more of the project's resources have been squandered into creating design document after design document.

I understand people want to buy into Brad's dream, but at some point this project needs more than a hype train.

I am not saying 3 devs and a 3D dude are going to do more and or faster content development than blizzards 500 - but nor are the 500 and their bloat just straight up 500x "faster and more content"

I think...if they go about growing the team slowly and properly they will have an efficient team and can turn out content decently- if they just throw vanguard money at it...you get brown