The easiest way to improve perception of Pantheon is to have results. Brad is known for being a windbag who can't deliver. Deliver. Prove us wrong.
Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO
- Thread starter gogojira_sl
- Start date
Make game, change perception. Compared to Vanguard the drama is minuscule. Right now the game is basically not much of anything and the only people keeping tabs on it are the people that know the history and are likely going to shit on it.
Furious
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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tad10
Elisha Dushku
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Eh. that sounds a bit wack but it was a PvP game. A little too generic: piercing for example might normally do less or much less damage than a mace (crushing) vs Plate but if you crit (indicating that you pierced through the armor) should have a much higher chance to crit.
Anyway, I'd like to see more complexity on that aspect of combat.
Joppa_VR
Pantheon Team
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Bruman
Golden Squire
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Ooooh, gotcha. I read that as "two teams [of volunteers] working at the same time". My derps.
Howdy! Maybe you'll make it past 10 posts before we run you off ;-). Can we pelt you with real, valid questions? Aka, not "Brad stealing money/drugs" questions.
Joppa, how do you (and the team) feel knowing that some of us think Pantheon will actually launch unlike EQN?
Joppa_VR
Pantheon Team
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Joppa_VR
Pantheon Team
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Nice avatar - I like the art direction.
Any ground gained is hard earned, Vinyard. There's an extremely unique and challenging mountain we have to climb, and we value every inch forward, honestly.
Bruman
Golden Squire
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Cool, here's some questions!
-What type of cadence are you going to go for with the video updates? One every 2-3 months?
-Any luck on VC?
-How are things looking on the networking side? I believe Brad showed off it running as a real client/server setup a long time ago - have you tried any "stress" testing, to see if a zone can handle 50 people or more? How's the game feeling when connecting from a computer not on the same network as the server?
-What's up with the locked encounter sizes? I can understand a zone needing an upper limit, but hearing about 6/12/etc fights (which I assume would be done with instancing) is a very big sad face for all of us here.
-I assume you guys have some internal tracking of work to do - any idea based on past progress when you guys would have something ready for the public (as in, more like months or years)?
-50 zones, I think you all said you were shooting for. Do you have any that are "content complete"? How many do you have roughly started?
That's all I got at the moment! I like asking questions.
-What type of cadence are you going to go for with the video updates? One every 2-3 months?
-Any luck on VC?
-How are things looking on the networking side? I believe Brad showed off it running as a real client/server setup a long time ago - have you tried any "stress" testing, to see if a zone can handle 50 people or more? How's the game feeling when connecting from a computer not on the same network as the server?
-What's up with the locked encounter sizes? I can understand a zone needing an upper limit, but hearing about 6/12/etc fights (which I assume would be done with instancing) is a very big sad face for all of us here.
-I assume you guys have some internal tracking of work to do - any idea based on past progress when you guys would have something ready for the public (as in, more like months or years)?
-50 zones, I think you all said you were shooting for. Do you have any that are "content complete"? How many do you have roughly started?
That's all I got at the moment! I like asking questions.
Joppa_VR
Pantheon Team
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Good questions:
1) At this point, we don't gain anything through overly-frequent video updates - there isn't enough progress to matter. I've called for a hard shift of paradigm on this and it's a good shift. We don't want update videos to be our developmental rhythm like they have been. Instead, we solidify a calendar of development with intelligent milestones, and when we are far enough along on that trajectory to matter, we update everyone.
2) Can't comment.
3) We were client/server back around June/July. Consistent optimizations have been done on that since then, including an upgrade to the server itself. Connectivity is smooth and the gameplay is pleasantly responsive, updating nicely. We have members of the team on the West/East coast & in-between, as well as Australia all connected at once. No stress testing has been done at this point and I'm not happy with the current performance of combat with a full group. Overall, I'm pleased with where we are at this stage, but much work left to do.
4) This needs much more discussion and vetting internally as well as feedback from the communities at large. I'm not sure this should have been discussed in the RT, it's not definitive by any means.
5) We have a roadmap for Alpha 1 right now that I'm happy with. If we execute that roadmap appropriately, I'm hoping to invite in the first round of pre-alpha in 6-8 months.
6) None content complete currently, when you factor in Lore/Quests, zone events and other scripted aspects. Currently we have 6 zones that are nearing completion according to the new workflow & tech. We're in the process of transitioning to Unity 5 currently which should be our final slow-down before we're able to pick up the production pace of world building considerably.
tad10
Elisha Dushku
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Way too many zones and effort into art.
You should have made one zone and just worked on combat and the engine in that zone until you were happy "with the current performance."
SMH.
Bruman
Golden Squire
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Excellent answers, thanks! Glad to see you guys are indeed keeping an eye on network performance. I also don't think you'll hurt much from taking a break on the video updates. The last two have shown a lot of polish over the previous ones, where you can at least leave it without a bad last impression imo, all things considered. Definitely keep us informed with what happens with encounter sizes!
Here's a few more for your next visit.
-What type of quests are you all planning to go with? I'd assume the answer is "more EQ style than WoW style", but that still leaves a lot open. Will be able to loot whenever, do turn-ins later? All of them repeatable?
-Thoughts on NPC interaction? "Type the magic word (EQ)" vs "Click the magic word (EQ Live)" vs "Box with options (VG/WoW)" vs [something else]?
-Will there be a type of quest journal/log (even if you do go EQ style)?
-Will quests give significant exp, or is the main source of exp going to be from killing mobs (EQ style I'm assuming, again)?
-Any other "classic EQ" type design decisions you want to share? [needing food/water, learning languages, weight, various factions in the same city, etc]
-And of course the most important question - will vendors sell to others, what I sell to them?
-Is your current team page (Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen - Wikis Profile - About Us) still up-to-date? Any other members missing, or that have since left?
-And this is just me being curious - being a team of volunteers, what kind (if any) development process are you using (various Agile methodologies [Scrum/Kanban/etc], or more Waterfall, or just kinda whatever)? Is more of the team full time, or more of them doing it after work? I'm a software developer with about 12 years under my belt, and I'm always curious how other teams and places do things - especially very "non-standard" projects like this one.
Here's a few more for your next visit.
-What type of quests are you all planning to go with? I'd assume the answer is "more EQ style than WoW style", but that still leaves a lot open. Will be able to loot whenever, do turn-ins later? All of them repeatable?
-Thoughts on NPC interaction? "Type the magic word (EQ)" vs "Click the magic word (EQ Live)" vs "Box with options (VG/WoW)" vs [something else]?
-Will there be a type of quest journal/log (even if you do go EQ style)?
-Will quests give significant exp, or is the main source of exp going to be from killing mobs (EQ style I'm assuming, again)?
-Any other "classic EQ" type design decisions you want to share? [needing food/water, learning languages, weight, various factions in the same city, etc]
-And of course the most important question - will vendors sell to others, what I sell to them?
-Is your current team page (Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen - Wikis Profile - About Us) still up-to-date? Any other members missing, or that have since left?
-And this is just me being curious - being a team of volunteers, what kind (if any) development process are you using (various Agile methodologies [Scrum/Kanban/etc], or more Waterfall, or just kinda whatever)? Is more of the team full time, or more of them doing it after work? I'm a software developer with about 12 years under my belt, and I'm always curious how other teams and places do things - especially very "non-standard" projects like this one.
I've got a question that can easily be taken wrong, but I'm being honest when I ask it:
How much experience in game making (an MMO in this case, making it more insane) does the team have? And how much of that second Sparkling era team remain? You know, fuzzy trolls and all that.
I think most people see improvements, but I'm going to predict one of the two main sticking points is based around who's working behind the scenes (I'll let you guess at the other). It's not a knock on what you've done, but how far you guys can take it.
Also, tell the lore writer to lay off the high fantasy thesaurus.
Thanks for stopping by, Joppa.
How much experience in game making (an MMO in this case, making it more insane) does the team have? And how much of that second Sparkling era team remain? You know, fuzzy trolls and all that.
I think most people see improvements, but I'm going to predict one of the two main sticking points is based around who's working behind the scenes (I'll let you guess at the other). It's not a knock on what you've done, but how far you guys can take it.
Also, tell the lore writer to lay off the high fantasy thesaurus.
Thanks for stopping by, Joppa.
Big Flex
Fitness Fascist
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Joppa, my perception is already changing a bit. There is still a long way to go, not only for me obviously. Pantheon has been the butt of many jokes here and imho it was a bit justified. There was so much craziness surrounding the project.
Now, for the first time in it's development history, I'm willing to accept that Pantheon is a viable game. The recently released video was somewhat impressive and now we have you posting statements that actually make sense for a change. Something is holding me back though, I don't know what experience you and the team have with developing a game of this scope. So I'm basically asking the same as gogojira.
I can't deny you're getting my hopes up for Pantheon. And after EQN tanking, I was willing to accept MMO's were not for me anymore.
Now, for the first time in it's development history, I'm willing to accept that Pantheon is a viable game. The recently released video was somewhat impressive and now we have you posting statements that actually make sense for a change. Something is holding me back though, I don't know what experience you and the team have with developing a game of this scope. So I'm basically asking the same as gogojira.
I can't deny you're getting my hopes up for Pantheon. And after EQN tanking, I was willing to accept MMO's were not for me anymore.
This was answered on the latest Roundtable by Brad. The plan so far is to have items that are sold to vendors be viewable and purchasable by other players.