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

Dr Neir

Trakanon Raider
832
1,505
What I still don't understand is why Brad would destroy what's left of his reputation for a few extra bucks. The whole dev team hates him now and no investor/publisher in their right mind is going to give him any money... and all for what? 20 thousand dollars?
Dont think failing or outright scamming was planned. It was more the matter of trying to skate by like he has in the past. Just this time it blew up on him. Whoever he was with in the past was the mastermind brainchild, but if he had this person or ppl now he wouldnt be in this pickle. But chances are, this played out like it did back then also, just behind the scenes and was at the perfect time to get a major buyoff. Thus all the old juice stories from old.
 

Soygen

The Dirty Dozen For the Price of One
<Nazi Janitors>
28,329
43,180
Plus, when you're wasting Microsoft or SOE's money, nobody really notices or cares. When you're taking money from customers and fans, in the hopes of a product, then it's a bit more disastrous when it fails.
 

Beastro

Bronze Knight of the Realm
140
1
The one example of "success" that exists, none of the die-hards play. Why is that? The die-hards love citing it as an example of a hardcore game "done right", why aren't they playing it?
What doesn't help is that Eve is a ship-centric space MMO and not a generic Tolkinesque fantasy world. I'll be the first to admit that I actually want that fantasy world, even if it's generic (though not as bland and uninspired as Pantheon, EQ showed you could make old tropes interesting) and wouldn't want to play a ship-centric MMO in the void of space with EQ mechanics just as I wouldn't want to play an FPS MMO with EQ mechanics ala PS or WWIIO.

I'm only speaking for myself, but I also don't want to go back to the glory days of EQ, just be back in a game world that feels as alive and involved, but maybe that's because I lived in the shadow of such events, reading about huge accomplishments on the PvE servers on websites while living my EQ life in a small family guild/PKing newbies on the side in Flowers of Happiness as I saw the major PvE and PvP guilds duke it out around me on Rallos.

With that said, I want to see big player driven events create player created history, not go back and relive my days in a top Rallos guild or members of the site raiding shit in Fires of Heaven because that never happened. I want to see the rise and fall of guilds as what happened to Peaceof Formosa/Peacebreakers, Wudan, Magus Imperialis Magicus, The Begotten, Ascending Dawn, scoundrel PK guilds like Darkenbane, Lucid Vision, Artful Death and FoH crawling around, but I don't much care if those guilds are the same nor if most of the sever I'd play on would be Rallos/Red server vets, I just want to have an interesting history unfold and while Eve has that, it drags its heels at a snails pace and involves hundreds of faceless people to accomplish such feats, not a few dozen like in a generic fantasy game.

Every time i try to go play eq the graphics just destroy it for me, its so damn old.
The problem I find is EQs revamped graphics aimed to be realistic and realism doesn't age well while the old, cartoony graphics have because they were quirky/had personality. To me it's like the difference between old 80s and 90s hand drawn cartoons compared to early CGI ones like Beast Wars (The character designs are decent, it's the landscapes that are god-awful and make the Karanas look detailed).
 

Frenzic

Lord Nagafen Raider
884
61
Some updates from the Brad!

Depends on your definition of 'rock bottom'.

We're certainly at a low point. We desperately need to find funding in the next 1-2 months.

We have a small part of the team still commited to helping out at least part-time (Tom, Chris, Tony).
I'm holding a private chat with the team on Friday to see how they all are feeling. I know there are still some bad feelings out there in terms of who got how much money for the work they did and the position they held. I hope to smooth some of that out, but I don't expect a big success. But, at the same time, even a small part-time team can keep us alive for 1-2 months. It would also give us the time to let this dark cloud over the project blow on by.

We also have a smaller investor who wants to put in $50k to keep the project alfoat, but that's still VERY preliminary -- this just happened and I need to talk with him in detail as to his expectations, etc.
My management skills are what allowed EQ to be created and launched. I've made mistakes, but I've shipped two MMOs and intend to ship another (Pantheon) if at all possible.

I realize people are often only judged on their most recent efforts. I also don't want to come across as defensive. But, at the risk of doing so, pretend there never was an EQ because I wasn't there as Producer, Product Manager, Scheduler, Visionary, etc., and let me know how you'd feel about the MMO genre and community.
Thanks
smile.png
This is a real tough time for me both professionally and personally (I can't seem to totally disconnect the two). It's also very tough for some of the team members who are without income and who can't really leave the San Diego area. SOE did major layoffs late last year. Trion San Diego was closed down. Molten games was closed down. There are too many skilled, experienced people in San Diego and not enough jobs right now. It's really tough.
I can liquidate collectables (magic cards, old CGC comic books, and other toys/collectables) to keep above water. Others cannot, and it's really tough for them. Our thoughts and prayers should be not only for the Pantheon guys, but for all game devs in the San Diego area.
1. I believe Tony will have some additional info about WarWizards, who they were, and how they might fit into the current era.

2. An image of a WarWizard (Aradune Mithara is a WarWizard in this multiverse) will be released soon -- it's being finished up. I'm really liking how it's coming along!

ps. I'm paying for the Aradune image out of my own pocket for those curious.

pps. I think it's super cool that Tony is including the concept of a WarWizard into the game. For those of you who don't know, my first game I ever coded was called WarWizard, and then we made a WarWizard 2 demo, which is what John Smedley noticed, and why he hired Steve Clover and me to work on what would become EverQuest.
-----AND THE BEST ONE-----


In the interim, any donations made at this point until further notice will be going directly to maintaining the website during this phase and supporting part-time development efforts by a much smaller team.
Which means that he is telling the fan base to start giving money again because some work is going to be done LOL. He went into detail about the smaller team and how they would need money. Wowzers~~
 

Beastro

Bronze Knight of the Realm
140
1
Actually, it's been shown time and time again that if you make soloing easy/effective people will always just solo the entire way.
Even if it isn't easy or effective it's still fucking fun to do content groups can do solo. Being a druid and spending a lot of time playing a Necro on the side/leveling with Necros, there was certain pride in doing shit by yourself that to0ehr classes had in moments like Chanters using Dire Charm.

That's an argument for group centered content, btw, a game just needs a good diversity of classes that offer different experiences in difference circumstances like Pallys soloing in Lower Guk using their undead spells.

Massively multiplayer has in the very fucking definition massively interactive. Ultima Online, EverQuest, DAoC, and AC had more interactions that occurred in this massively setting than any recent modern MMO, and it's nowhere close. That is, for example, in UO, a plethora of different interactions could occur to you or by you at any one time, anywhere in the entire world, under many different circumstances. WoW onwward, these interactions are removed or restricted in a number of different ways, from segregation of players in discrete, controlled numbers (instances, battlegrounds) to even the types of interactions they can do to you or you to them (e.g., I can't steal that dk's nightshade, and actually, he can cast a spell without any nightshade, so two gameplay elements have been removed: getting/keeping the nightshade safe and my attempting to steal it). Compound these interactions and you see the massively has all but been removed the further along we regress in this shitpile of an industry.
Two things come to mind, how awesome smacktalk was and the void made by barring communication between factions and a old UO player reminiscing about sharing a home with some friends and them working together to lure a mob into the house and trapping it in corner behind some furniture to make it into a "pet" they'd greet every time they came home which stayed that was for years.

You're right...instancing had nothing to do with WoW's ability to provide enough content to support 11 million players.
It also nearly removed all end game player interaction contesting raid targets save for a few targets wandering around open world zones.
 

Frenzic

Lord Nagafen Raider
884
61
And in case you missed this gem...

I realize people are often only judged on their most recent efforts. I also don't want to come across as defensive. But, at the risk of doing so, pretend there never was an EQ because I wasn't there as Producer, Product Manager, Scheduler, Visionary, etc., and let me know how you'd feel about the MMO genre and community.
He is taking credit for shaping the entire MMO industry. Some things would be different for sure but to say that MMO's would be fundamentally different is just a massive EGO. Everything that was put into EQ was already there, just not in 3d form. I can't fathom how this guy's ego is so large, especially when you can't find legit work in the industry...
 

Convo

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
8,761
613
I can liquidate collectables (magic cards, old CGC comic books, and other toys/collectables) to keep above water. Others cannot, and it's really tough for them. Our thoughts and prayers should be not only for the Pantheon guys, but for all game devs in the San Diego area.
He keeps saying this and I keep pointing out that he chose to pocket 2/3 of the money. The money was from the community to make a game. This isn't an established corporation. It's a start up. Managers don't pay themselves 2/3 of the pot. Certainly not before they have a product that has launched. This is the disconnect he's just not getting.. The current state of Pantheon falls directly in his lap.

I know there would be some, but I'd bet that the majority of the community would never of dropped a dime on this project had they known the rate he planned to pay himself.

I'm going to call this bullshit. Sell your 2nd fucking house, sell your Acura NSX. Show us how bad you really want this project to succeed b/c you're the one who put the fucking nail in it's coffin.
 

Beastro

Bronze Knight of the Realm
140
1
Also, the industry is FAR from failing. More money and more games are being made than ever before -- at astounding growth rates (both foreign and domestic).
I hate to say it, it sounds like the kind of person I really hate in life, but the games are shit because the genre is becoming more popular every day. It's the same with MMA and how the fights have become worse and worse with less entertaining matches, more decisions and less KOs/Submissions every year, though the UFC monopoly doesn't help matters.
 

zzeris

King Turd of Shit Hill
<Gold Donor>
19,090
75,755
I'm wondering if the little old retired lady suddenly learned about reverse mortgages and is the $50k donation?

Brad talks about all the laid off developers but he had the opportunity to hire some of these guys and get some kind of product out there. Instead, he took almost $100 k in a fraudulent scheme to bilk fans. This whole fiasco is Brad trying to get what little he still can from his previous reputation before the final curtains close on his career in this industry.
 

Beastro

Bronze Knight of the Realm
140
1
What I want:
-Meaningful loot that may last many levels.
-The option to solo, but with significantly decreased experience and loot rewards.
-No exclamation points, mini maps, or instant travel to places other than city hubs.
-Risk. Fear of death.
-Class dependence and defined roles.
-Visible and valuable rewards that are limited in quantity.
-A combination of instanced and FFA content.

What I don't want:
-An exceedingly grindy leveling curve.
-No reason to leave the risk free loot and experience fields.
-A lack of anything to do because 2000 people are competing for content made for a few hundred (probably involves some form of instancing).
-A game that even the derpest of derpers will eventually complete all content.
-A world so controlled that there is no such thing as emergent gameplay or unintended mechanic usage. If you never have to fix anything, it's already broken.
What I want save for instancing. I want competition and drama as people struggle over a zero-sum game (in the short term, the have-nots gets content as it the haves move on to newer, better stuff) that lends an incredible level of value and meaning to the rewards from said content (all the drama over epics and items like manastone, the allure of pre-nerf guises).

As for fear of death, the only way you're going to do it effectively is corpse recovery for items. It adds a whole new aspect to the game as you either struggle to recover yours by yourself or have to work together with limited means with others to get all of your asses of the fire like in wiped raids.
 

Jimbolini

Semi-pro Monopoly player
2,567
955
Not knowing the card/comic book/collectable market...how much could he possibly raise? 10k? 20?

Just curious, I was under the assumption unless you have Action comics #1 or Batman #1..the market is crap.
 

Beastro

Bronze Knight of the Realm
140
1
there's less of a following than you think at least in terms of longevity of the game.
It's the fatal mistake too many who play emus make.

I think more people would enjoy it if they would give it a try but the market is saturated the competition already (EQ Emus) already have people's time and investment.
I wouldn't bet on that.

Emus are played because they're free, but by people constantly bitching about the quality of the game because its free. The quality can be content, but in my experience most of it is from the complete and utter lack of integrity that comes with a bunch of basement dwelling idiots running a server where, even if their shit is clean, there is constant suspicion of corruption and other crap hanging over the community's opinion because the product is not professionally run.

Put out a game like EQ, act professional, stock your CS with professionals and show that you're not a pack of amateurs that'll run an RMT racket, twink your friends out in gear or ban people over petty shit (even if you're a total dick they'll stick by you, what else do they have to play but emu, or worse, EQ Live? Other MMOs will not attrach their attention for more than a few months) and the EQ emu population will dry up very quickly save for the large swatch of PvP players that'll crawl back after being banned in the first few months for treating the game like their own personal hack filled toilet to shit in and not a legit game.

Now whether or not such a game would survive or what population it would attract is another thing, but you'd get a massive influx of players at release on the scale not seen in the EQemu since it began to get big in 2007(ish).

Tyen is building EQ in unity...
If he could pull it off without his giant petty ego getting in the way of professionalism he'd go from a complete shit to an EQ god in most people's eyes, though I must admit, out of anybody who'd try this he's the only one who'd encourage me to maintain my EQemu level paranoia thanks to the shady crap he did running this boards previous incarnation.
 

Sylas

<Bronze Donator>
3,153
2,861
What I still don't understand is why Brad would destroy what's left of his reputation for a few extra bucks. The whole dev team hates him now and no investor/publisher in their right mind is going to give him any money... and all for what? 20 thousand dollars?
What reputation was that? You give him too much credit. He lost it all already on Vanguard. He was already at the point that no Investor/publisher in their right mind was going to give him any money, hence the KS to fleece the minute handful of willfully ignorant fanboys he still had. But he overestimated how many fanboy's still remained to him, and couldn't even meet his 800k goal.

So he resigned to steal what he could steal and setup direct donations on a website directly into his own bank account.

wait a minute, you don't actually believe he ever intended to make this game, do you?
 

Beastro

Bronze Knight of the Realm
140
1
ZOMG RACIAL CITY LORE DROP GIMME 800k

Between the black of the west and the light of the east lie the jewels of the Earth. The seven races, caught in the eternal tipping of the scales, splitting the night and the dawn. The immensity of The Grey Peak looms overhead, silently watching the ages turn. Inside, The Grey Council stands in eternal stasis, shining a beam of light skyward through the heart of the mountain, bursting from its peak for all to see. The Underway below twists and shifts - the ancient and gnarled roots of the world.

Red - blood - Men (The Adria) - A culture forged in war and struggle against the dark - city: Morning's Blade, the last city of men whose empire once stretched far further to the west. While much of the technology that gave The Old Empire it's strength is lost, the human city still contains limited examples of it. A hub of trade and travel for all the races, the city stands atop a giant cliff at the base of The Grey Peak. A great river flows over the edge of the cliff and around the base of the city, cascading past and creating a mighty waterfall. It is contained by three concentric walls, each taller than the one before it. At the centre of the city rises the inconceivably tall Spire of Adrial, where the red crystal softly hums, and The Lord of Men governs his realm.

Orange - fire - The Z'ag - insectoid, beetle-like, malevolent - city: Z'agduun, built in a great magma chamber out of shining obsidian bricks. The sharp angles of the architecture contrast against the flowing lava and hardened walls of molten rock. Lava flows through a sort of aqueduct, delivering light to various parts of the city. The city is a horseshoe, with a cave system dug into the walls behind it. At the centre of the horseshoe, an immense rock thrusts into the centre of a great plaza. The orange crystal shines at its tip.

Yellow - ether - The Vinti - ornately feathered, tall, lithe, beautiful, xenophobic - city: Sky Reach. A massive gnarled tree twisting from the side of The Grey Peak. Suspended in the air by giant knotted ropes hangs the city. The ancient tree's roots dig into the mountainside and partially wrap around the immensity of the pulsing yellow crystal.

Green - earth - The Ordo - short, bulky, gorilla-like. rock, grass & moss men. Wise and pragmatic - city: 'The Mouth of the World', a great crater whose walls rise high from the land, creating valley with a river bisecting it. The inside lush with trees, and among the crater walls is built the city. In the centre of the round crater, the river parts briefly exposing an island that glows with the light of the green crystal.

Blue - water - The Finari - amphibious race, fish-like, highly religious, largely indifferent to the other races - city: Loshe Tor - on the rocky cliff shores of the Eastern Light, through a wave carved split in the stone, an immense city stands, built within an ancient coral reef in a massive domed chamber. The blue crystal protrudes downward from the centre of the dome, casting its light on the walls of the chamber.

Indigo - steel - The Diggar - massive, lumbering, coldly intelligent, bio-mechanical beings - city: The Shaft - a massive open pit in the world, perfectly cylindrical, continued since an ancient age that predates the sentience of their race, when they were simply mindless slaves constructed by men. The bio technologically advanced city is constructed vertically along the walls of the shaft. Causeways and bridges cross from side to side. At its deepest limits, the massive pit opening can barely be seen, and it is here the Indigo crystal that gave them intelligence beats in silence.

Violet - magic - The Riki - small, quick, spiky, gemstone crusted, multicoloured - city: Shimmerstone - an expansive cave deep in the heart of The Grey Peak. The whole city is reminiscent of a giant geode, with structures hewn from crystals that seem to drip with magic. The Riki have harnessed magic to provide light in the depths of the mountain's heart, and it dances off the crystals everywhere you look. In the centre of the city rests a perfectly still mirror-like pool, and at its bottom, the violet crystal glows eternally.
Some good atypical races that keep in the fantasy feeling, only the amphibians bug me.

Why is it always Amphibiansish/Fish-like races that are the zealots?

Is that some trace of Lovecrafts influence on people? It isn't even in fantasy, it's worse in Sci-Fi. Randomly pick a game set in space that has some form of water dwelling species and they'll be a pack of genocidal fanatics.

It's as fucking bad as insects or pacifist plants.

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