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

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Cukernaut

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The first part of your response is pretty reasonable to me - you don't like the art direction (or apparently lack-there-of) that they've shown so far. That's an opinion - nothing wrong with having a different one, and I'll agree that parts can come across as bland. I guess I am of mixed feelings on that being consequential. For one, RL can be pretty bland - I mean, the actual medieval times most fantasy rpgs are based on were pretty drab and boring - so maybe that influences my own evaluation. Even in a fantasy world I don't expect every area to be totally alien and amazing. I just sorta expect different biomes and cultures. Epic gear to be epic. I hate cosmetic shops since it takes away from all of that. The elf area is pretty decent looking, and yeah, the human area just comes across as stock fantasy. The actual character races don't look too bad though, and they've actually done a pretty decent job IMO of having some more unique races without making them utterly silly (ie cat people or pandas) or alien. Out of curiosity though, do you have a few example indie/non-AAA MMO's with art direction that you think is imaginative and non-dull? What pops in my mind for categories is usually older/retro (Project Gorgon is one of the more modern examples of this), Japanese/Korean fantastical RPGish, more realistic, or cartoonish (WoW, Wildstar, etc).

I disagree somewhat on the Unity asset comment but I can see how you could come to that conclusion. Brad did apparently originally think when starting VR & Pantheon that you could build a mmo faster & cheaper based on the unity store in part. That isn't necessarily as unreasonable of a thought then as it appears to be now - after all, there are plenty of games, including a few smaller mmo's (more hobbyist I'll admit) built using these assets - and the idea is pretty tantalizing given the usual amount of resources it takes to build a MMO. I mean, it's not like all of the assets are bad in the store - some are pretty decent. I don't think that really influenced their art design necessarily though. They have a TON of concept art out there - even as far back as the Kickstarter - that concept art is instructive. The art direction comes across as actually really just a continuation of the lineage of MMO's they've worked on in the past - EQ, Vanguard, etc. It's pretty much the same style. Which fits in the more realistic fantasy category I mentioned up above. That matched much of the Unity assets we've seen in the game - largely from the human area of the game and is within the realistic graphics category - so it makes sense they'd use them heavily in that area. There are other areas of the game shown that don't come across as human realm-boring, but are still realistic in style. The raid zone from the video, the elf area, the halfling area, etc for example.

I'm a MMORPG player - I probably do have a low bar for MMO's - and Indie studios in general. I'd rather the gameplay be there and while better graphics is always nice, they just need to be serviceable. I've enjoyed playing Project Gorgon and EQ TLP servers and can enjoy them just fine without QQing over the eye candy. I also enjoy great graphics - I've finally picked up Cyberpunk on sale and just started playing it - definitely some nice stuff, especially when RT is on. I've played plenty of games with great graphics that were shitty games, and I've played plenty of games with bad-mediocre graphics that were great games. I mean, I can make all sorts of RL analogies too, so why should I shit all over an indie mmo - or any game - just based on looks?

I also take issue with your last comment in part. It's been 7 years since the failed Kickstarter - I mean, it was a game concept that was drafted around a table in a garage, was shut down, restarted as a volunteer hobbyist MMO, then started picking up funding and then hires, etc to where it is now. No denying the tortured history of it or that there's controversy around Brad's management/ownership in certain aspects, but how do you get to outright "grifting retards for dollars"? They need money to make the game, and they've clearly built a MMO game client capable of supporting testers in 30hr sessions at least. What are you either basing that conclusion on or comparing it the game to in order to reach that conclusion? I mean, the history of non-AAA indie crowdfunded MMO's is pretty wretched. They're hardly unique in having tortured development histories, missing goals, controversies, etc. Here's some examples -

Crowfall has been in development for 8 years also - it's had almost $40million dumped into it, and it's worth noting that the payroll (per their covid loan filing) is like $5-7 million a year alone. Their beta timeline said Beta2 was due 5 years ago with a launch in late 2016. It had raised $13million as of 2017. It's launching next month, minus a ton of promised content, and their own announcement on their forums has alot of concern posts in it from their own testers.

Albion - They had a pre-existing company with shipped titles and an office (that alone is huge), a team of 12 (presumably FT) at the start (18 it looks like heading into alpha, and 60 by launch). Wasn't even their idea for the game - they won the bid for the game's concept along with the investor's large seed funding that went along with the concept in 2012. As a timeline, it entered early alpha in like Spring 2014, closed beta in Nov 2015, final (open) beta in Aug 2016, launched July 2017, and launched on steam in May 2018. Of note, on 4/13/15 they were aiming for a "early-mid 2016" release. They missed goals and took awhile to ship the game despite their startup advantages. They didn't buy DDoS protection for launch - lulz. Worth noting there's some good arguments to be made that it was still really in beta or at least not polished like a released title until the Lancelot update in March of 2018. It didn't get a tutorial until March of 2019 fwiw.

AoC - They're approaching 6 years of working on the game. The owner has a history that includes MLMs & Real Estate - of some mild concern in the crowdfunded MMO world potentially, but at least they had a pretty massive initial bit of funding. They've currently got about the same headcount as ArtCraft does, so presumably around the same payroll (although they're planning to double in size). They're literally cranking out monthly cosmetic sets (ala Star Citizen ships) for purchase. They just lost their lead dev, they delayed their NDA unmasking, they started a full combat revamp (that is way behind schedule) in March after years of showing off their combat, their Alpha1 list is somewhat thin if you drill down. They're also promising the world, but hey, the graphics I see do look pretty good. Did I mention tons of delays? Noticing a pattern here? Well I guess they did launch a poorly received no-population stand-alone game as a side detour.

Project Gorgon - Now 8 years in development. They do have more people working on it now than just the H&W team, but had a small KS/Indiegogo and other low level funding - probably closer to Pantheon than Albion/AoC/Crowfall in terms of funding/start-up profile. Fairly fun game with some neat skill & crafting mechanics, totally group-based, apparently total crap if you like eye candy though? No real ETA on launch to my knowledge, but they keep adding stuff slowly and patching.

CoE - In development for about 6.5yrs. Actually doesn't look like a pure scam to me, more just complete incompetence with no real clue about how hard it is to actually make a MMO. At least up until the land rush cash grab & the studio "closing". Since then it could be bad, or it could just be the guy taking his lawyer's advice? Who knows, for all practical purposes, this was actual vaporware. They hoovered up almost $10million in gaming dollars and produced a single player parkour room as their only bit of player-accessible alpha content.

Star Citizen - For fun, let's toss this one in. Development started 11 years ago. They've raised over $350 million. There's an arms length list of controversies, including a full engine change, lawsuits, and sooo many missed deadlines & feature bloats. We might be getting the single player a-la Wing Commander Squadron 42 though sometime soon?

Pantheon - A failed Kickstarter and low levels of crowdfunding after that for a long time. Apparently put enough together (in terms of game presentation & employees) in the 2016 & 2017 timeframe to start earning more crowdfunding. Languished in Pre-Alpha since, but apparently pretty much recoded the entire game in the last 18 months. Unlike CoE they have had actual testers in the game, had public streams - including with community streamers doing their own thing in pre-alpha. They are clearly not vaporware and development, however slow, continues to demonstrate actual progress from time to time. I mean, they do have a ton of pre-alpha donors and there's not really been an evidence of mass revolts there, so take from that what you will about what players with a closer perspective think. They haven't discussed it, but there's also good reason to believe their funding has been lower than almost every other game on this list other than Project Gorgon (potentially in the same realm as CoE). Why is that important? Well, if games with 4x+ better funding are having the same issues, then why is Pantheon some sort of special shit unicorn? No, they're pretty much on-par with the rest of the crowdfunded MMO scene, but it is notable that they aren't selling armor sets every month like AoC (or ships like Star Citizen), selling land & titles in game like CoE did, selling VIP subs while in testing like Project Gorgon, etc. I mean, if Pantheon was some sort of grift - why aren't they at least doing the same sort of (fairly normal) fundraising as the rest? The cognitive dissonance on this fact alone amazes me at times.

Take all the issues you want with the tortured development and glacial progress - because that is 100% valid. You're also entitled to your own opinion on the graphics being bland or such, but the rest just seems inaccurate to me. I mean, game development can be a real tortured shit-show - that's why most games aren't really talked about until a studio is good and ready. There's a real history of issues with MMO development even before all of these games - I mean, several had the plug pulled before the public got much of a glimpse - anyone remember the history behind Titan, Wish, or The Agency? Crowdfunded indie MMO's give people a much closer seat to how messy game development can be - combined with the pressures & issues involving crowdfunding cash raising & cash flows in general. All of the games I listed have a very lengthy development history, majorly missed dates, most have plenty of controversies (some have lawsuits), etc. Pantheon is hardly unique with it's history or issues. Always interesting to me that it has a 2k+ page thread here, but those other games' threads have barely a nod to those sort of issues. The gifs are hilarious, and this thread is a pretty epic repository of them, but still quite the disparity of angst on this forum.

“Too long didn’t read”. Am I doing this right boys?
 
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Nirgon

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might be time to do an audit on the haters here and get to the bottom of all the immersion hating
 

yerm

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might be time to do an audit on the haters here and get to the bottom of all the immersion hating

I'm gonna guess the biggest pro pantheon people here were really big into wow. Serious mythic raiders and the like. Not wotlk era either; recent stuff.

I'm guessing a lot of the overly critical naysayers also walked away from blizzard much earlier and didn't get engrossed in shit mythic recent crap either. Or maybe at all, probably a lot of eq autists.

Can't wait to see the audit.
 
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Erronius

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DqubL2f.gif

Time is a flat circle?
 
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Hateyou

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That depends on what you think "this thing" is.

If you're thinking of "this thing" as an actual physical thing that really exists and can be seen and interacted with (i.e. the 3d models and environments and sounds and all the code that allows those art assets to congeal into a real game) then Brad's micro penis is barely visible through his blubbery furry troll paunch, but he still rubs the tip all over the actual product often enough that there's a crust of Brad's pre-cum and pubic hair coating everything created by the people who actually create things.

If you're thinking of "this thing" in a more holistic way, then Brad's cock is so rockingly balls deep in the full on Pantheon experience that it's coming out the other end like a shishkebab. Every single post this very thread we're in right now is being held together by Brad's meat stick alone. You could even go as far as saying that everything associated with the Pantheon franchise only exists because it has been lovingly ejaculated from Brad's Visionary Testicles.
Erronius Erronius got me digging and reminiscing about this thread and I found some fine shit posting that aged great, like a fine wine.
 
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Nirgon

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Even 5 years later, the answer is still "no"

Also answers the question of: do the MMO geniuses here realize this isn't an established company raking in 10s of millions with a full team ready to go. Much of this time was spent successfully searching for funding and hiring, building up with what few people they had.

There's simply no way to get it across.
 

yerm

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When you're a small team with limited resources and you decide to constantly reshape your world, redraw concepts, redesign core gameplay elements, rehash, rehash, rehash...

...you no longer get a pass. You're wasting time you never had much of. Like I've said to you before - they needed someone to sit them down and make them stop the ADHD idea hopping and just finish what they started. They are the development equivalent of someone who keeps rerolling alts and putting their starting stats in differently or saying actually this race is better oh wait now this class is better oh actually... and never ends up actually reaching end game. Pantheon isn't even moving in the direction of an end product. They're just tossing shit around.
 
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Hateyou

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someone who keeps rerolling alts and putting their starting stats in differently or saying actually this race is better oh wait now this class is better oh actually... and never ends up actually reaching end game.
0A0243AA-0E63-4A39-AC8C-B11DBE835091.jpeg
 
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Erronius

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Also answers the question of: do the MMO geniuses here realize this isn't an established company raking in 10s of millions with a full team ready to go. Much of this time was spent successfully searching for funding and hiring, building up with what few people they had.

There's simply no way to get it across.

After this many years, you all sound like battered wives making excuses for the abuse. It's clearly everyone else. None of the criticisms could be valid. We must all just be haters.

His point is that most of the posters here act like Pantheon is the only mmo (or game) that wasn't finished 10 minutes after it was announced.

The excessive hyperbole from the criers here is kind of pathetic. But it's the internet, so par for the course.

The most hilarious part of your post is that you want to throw shade at us for 'excessive hyperbole', immediately after saying "most of the posters here act like Pantheon is the only mmo (or game) that wasn't finished 10 minutes after it was announced."

The first 2 years of this thread was really about Brad, the sorry excuse for the Kickstarter, whether he was bilking people, etc etc etc.

Are you somehow surprised that eventually, over time, people segued to this being vaporware?

It's 8 years later, and you don't seem to understand where people are coming from with their criticism?
 

Hateyou

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After this many years, you all sound like battered wives making excuses for the abuse. It's clearly everyone else. None of the criticisms could be valid. We must all just be haters.



The most hilarious part of your post is that you want to throw shade at us for 'excessive hyperbole', immediately after saying "most of the posters here act like Pantheon is the only mmo (or game) that wasn't finished 10 minutes after it was announced."

The first 2 years of this thread was really about Brad, the sorry excuse for the Kickstarter, whether he was bilking people, etc etc etc.

Are you somehow surprised that eventually, over time, people segued to this being vaporware?

It's 8 years later, and you don't seem to understand where people are coming from with their criticism?
Yeah, in the first page of this thread you can see a lot of hopefulness. People wanting it to be a well made Vanguard. The constant ridicule only really started with the amateur KS, amateur videos, etc. and it was just having fun/memeing. The real anger and doubt started when Brad literally stole $45k from the original teams crowdfunding to pay his own bills, left some of them without pay for their initial work, etc. While most people here would live to see a successful MMO the entire thing has been deserving of the ridicule and doubt. Getting butthurt about people making fun of it is dumb.

I feel like this gif sums up Brads final MMO attempt.

 

Nirgon

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After this many years, you all sound like battered wives making excuses for the abuse. It's clearly everyone else. None of the criticisms could be valid. We must all just be haters.



The most hilarious part of your post is that you want to throw shade at us for 'excessive hyperbole', immediately after saying "most of the posters here act like Pantheon is the only mmo (or game) that wasn't finished 10 minutes after it was announced."

The first 2 years of this thread was really about Brad, the sorry excuse for the Kickstarter, whether he was bilking people, etc etc etc.

Are you somehow surprised that eventually, over time, people segued to this being vaporware?

It's 8 years later, and you don't seem to understand where people are coming from with their criticism?


You're in denial of reality (game has one zone, no funding etc) and frustrated whenever you see progress. The seething is real and several people have pointed it out now outside the gif clique.
 
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Grim1

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You're in denial of reality (game has one zone, no funding etc) and frustrated whenever you see progress. The seething is real and several people have pointed it out now outside the gif clique.

There are a lot of people in life who hate everyone who tries to accomplish something in life. Most people are lazy and stupid, people who try make the lazy and stupid look bad. So the lazy and stupid endlessly attack people who try, in an attempt bring them down to the level of insipidness that the lazy and stupid inhabit.

This thread is full of lazy and stupid people.
 
  • 2Worf
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Metalhead

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There are a lot of people in life who hate everyone who tries to accomplish something in life. Most people are lazy and stupid, people who try make the lazy and stupid look bad. So the lazy and stupid endlessly attack people who try, in an attempt bring them down to the level of insipidness that the lazy and stupid inhabit.

This thread is full of lazy and stupid people.

So, Grim. How much money have you given these people?
 
  • 2Worf
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Nirgon

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Brad is literally gone and was the basis of all the attacking cuz of parking lot firing thing before or "borrowing" out of the Kickstarter.

Yet they've found a reason to continue without him. Not sure doing an audit would make a dent in the circle jerk.