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

Pasteton_sl said:

Just curious if he were to off himself I wonder how many of you would feel guilty/bad versus how many would be thrilled.

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Pasteton_sl said:

I'm sure draegan would love the media attention "washed up developer commits suicide following online forum bullying"

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Oh fuck off, nobody but the scum bags on the board would derive any thrills from that. And in any case, thinking that some harsh comments here are going to drive him over the edge vastly overestimates the significance of these boards. And there's really no "bullying" going on here. No one, as far as I know, is harassing him either in the real world or even online, other than posting the truth about how he has had a string of fuckups since his EQ success. Suck it up, for fuck's sake.

zzeris_sl said:

I completely disagree. That's similar to Donald Trump saying he's not sure how US business bankruptcy laws work. He's done it several times and knows how to benefit from lenient bankruptcy laws. He's worked the system.

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The difference being, Trump is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Brad might have a net worth of a million or two, maybe a bit more. Certainly not much more than that. And the vast majority of that wealth is from the EQ days, maybe some from Sigil, and MS has no one to blame but their own shitty management for shovelling money at him. This Pantheon thing is chump change, and again in my opinion, the idiots that gave him money quite honestly deserve to have lost it, because the signs were there from the start that this was a fucking train wreck.

Don't attribute to deviousness what can easily be explained by incompetence.

zzeris_sl said:

When the going got rough, he DUPED SOE into taking over for him and jetting off into the sunset. He intentionally lied to SOE. He conned people who had worked with him before.

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Please explain to me how he duped SOE on the Vanguard purchase? If SOE didn't do enough due diligence to realize that they were buying a lemon, I have zero sympathy for them. They knew damn well who they were dealing with, and I'm sure there were other former SOE staff at Sigil that they could have talked to and would have told them what's up. If they shovelled a few million bucks at MS to buy the rights to Vanguard without knowing it would cost millions more to release it based on Brad's word only, then that's on SOE, not Brad.

zzeris_sl said:

Brad wanted another easy source of money and he didn't care how he got it. The website still took donations after he knew development was over. The website was only really used to pay off some bills. He didn't care how it was going to get done...he was going to get some money off people. This was a scam. No MMO gets made with 800,000. No piddly website will get an MMO made. No sitting around for 9 months gets stuff done. This was a scam from day 1. He lost all his support in the industry to rob others while sitting on his ass. He just needed to scam one last group of people. His fans. And of course the latest batch of developers he puts together.

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Well, we'll have to agree to disagree. No one worth a couple million is going to run an elaborate scam like this for months to walk away with maybe 50-75k, if it was even that much. Maybe that's a lot of money to you, I don't know your situation, but that wouldn't be to him.

Again, don't attribute to deviousness what can easily be explained by incompetence.

Adebisi_sl said:

I'd like to know what the leftover Pantheon community expects to get out of this now?

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There are still the t-shirts to look forward to if they ever get to the 50 minimum orders.

Tauro_sl said:

Oculus Rift/Sony Project Morpheus should be the next "gamechanger"-tech. The first game to really use that tech to full effect can make a fortune. Think about a 1st-person VR-MMO done right.... a true revolution i think.

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Probably not. The MMOs that have made a ton of money have done it by targeting people with average-to-below-average PCs that weren't generally into PC games. VR is never going to be mainstream enough for it to be the next big MMO thing.

you cant call this a scam or at least the goal wasnt to scam a hundred k out of people. the vanguard failure i dunno much on that because it always looked like shit and people who threw money at it have nobody but themselves to blame. brad keeps coming up with this same idea based on "the vision" and he doesnt force people to give him cash. its like the guy who invented the flip phone getting millions chucked at him to keep making flip phones while everyone has smartphones. any of you would do the same if you were in his position. this game failed because nobody wants his vision anymore because his vision is no longer a vision. its just an old style of gaming with graphics that look like an upgrade to ultima.

brad isnt the only busnessman with substance abuse issues. doesnt make this any scammier. poorly thought out sure. as a scam? you're gonna need more evidence than "pill popper"

The guy is just incompetent at leading any project, he should of been the creative director and not the CEO.

Eomer_sl said:

(stuff)

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Eomer for MMORPG president (sorry, it's a 1 term thing... the genre is dead)
Convo for VP

Brad is inept, self absorbed, delusional, but not stupid enough to intentionally sabotage his future in the industry that he genuinely loves for the sake of 100k or less. Hell, not even for 800k.

He drank his own cool aid, and has been doing so for 15 years. He just didn't have the right people around him to give him the perspective (or maybe the sense to listen to them) that he needed to avoid tripping over himself and into a pile of self derived shit yet again. At every possible opportunity he missteps, and rather than own up, he digs deeper into the self assuring half-truths and misdirection that have been the staples of his reflex reaction toolbox.

Shamefully and borderline criminally negligent? yes.
Intentional and malicious scam? no.

Definitely a case of him not listening. He had all kinds of great advice. From within his team and from the community

Haha wow I didn't mean those comments seriously. Was a sarcastic nod to the general point-irrational-fingers in the face of tragedy we see so often in the media now. Personally I think the whole concept of 'online bullying' is pretty farcical and I know that it's been tied to suicides by the media already (can't think of an example off top of my head)

The team knew what they were getting into and them laying the blame solely at Brad's feet as if they were completely blindsided by all of this? Just because Brad took more of the money that none of them had any business getting in the first place? If he had split it evenly among all of them what would we be saying about that? Free pass for everyone? Gimme a break. I don't feel bad for anybody on that team, Brad's history was known well beforehand and for them to be whistleblowers after the fact and plead ignorance is ridiculous. It's like a mobster's wife and kids claiming they were victims of their surroundings after everything gets taken away by the feds. Poor them.... hahaha.

And to everyone claiming Brad wouldn't sabotage himself purposely by scamming people? Brad is an egomaniac, and that is exactly what egomaniacs do. They think they are smarter than everyone else, that they are untouchable and the gods of their domain. He'll pretend he was a victim of circumstance, that none of this was his intention and play the fool because he literally does not give a shit. And he'll continue to keep doing the same things over and over as long as he can.

None of the people working on this game weren't making money elsewhere except for maybe Brad unless they are the most naive, incompetent people around. They were all in this together, all of them wanted to bilk the public's money to make a game with no risk to themselves. That is precisely why there is nothing to show for this game, they were barely working on it.

Convo_sl said:

...On a personal note, I know he is/was dealing with some RL issues during all of this. Possibly a serious illness with a family member... Just a hint, chill with the wife comments ...

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Obviously I couldn't know this when I joked about his wife. apologies. I will censor any future wife comments.
HOWEVER...If he's lying about it... he's further gone that I thought. You just don't lie about shit like that. it's bad karma.
And I will retract my offer to blow him (I hope BJ jokes are still ok).

Luxer_sl said:

The guy is just incompetent at leading any project, he should of been the creative director and not the CEO.

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I guess he didn't know any CEOs who were willing to work for pennies/pro bono. He said he was planning on hiring a CEO. But when the $$ pretty much stopped coming in all together (like a week after the KS ended), it made no sense to try and add team members. You know you can't sustain a team financially if there's no $ coming in... which is probably why he finally killed it when he did.

Khane_sl said:

The team knew what they were getting into and them laying the blame solely at Brad's feet as if they were completely blindsided by all of this? Just because Brad took more of the money that none of them had any business getting in the first place? If he had split it evenly among all of them what would we be saying about that? Free pass for everyone? Gimme a break. I don't feel bad for anybody on that team, Brad's history was known well beforehand and for them to be whistleblowers after the fact and plead ignorance is ridiculous. It's like a mobster's wife and kids claiming they were victims of their surroundings after everything gets taken away by the feds. Poor them.... hahaha.

And to everyone claiming Brad wouldn't sabotage himself purposely by scamming people? Brad is an egomaniac, and that is exactly what egomaniacs do. They think they are smarter than everyone else, that they are untouchable and the gods of their domain. He'll pretend he was a victim of circumstance, that none of this was his intention and play the fool because he literally does not give a shit. And he'll continue to keep doing the same things over and over as long as he can.

None of the people working on this game weren't making money elsewhere except for maybe Brad unless they are the most naive, incompetent people around. They were all in this together, all of them wanted to bilk the public's money to make a game with no risk to themselves. That is precisely why there is nothing to show for this game, they were barely working on it.

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The team has the benefit of looking like naive angels next to Brad. They certainly haven't done much to prove themselves as capable on their own merit, though, and once the dust settles it's not like they're going to be viewed with reverence or anything. The total output of this team of "game developers" is a screenshot of a playdough dragon plopped outside of their one piece of architecture, along with some lore articles about a fucking staff and a guide to Ogre language. That is pretty pathetic on its own, but having Brad around ensures that they look better than they should. They seem like nice guys, but let's be real, none of them are savants.

He didn't need a CEO, I mean... come on people. He needed a project manager with a modicum of experience. Even most of the "enlightened" people on this very cynical forum just don't understand what was going on here. Open dem eyes.

He also paid himself 5x what everyone else was getting, which is why the money only lasted a month.