Guys, I've been thinking about this a lot. Am I missing a lot of chatter on some social media app somewhere? Is there a lot of mingling going on in Discord or something? The forum is very low traffic as far as I've been able to tell. I've been monitoring a lot of the forum, watching for the most trafficked areas, trying to get an idea of what folks are interested. Know what I found?
Nuthin'.
The forum seems to have very little traffic. Main traffic is like this: Kilsin asks a random question to get people involved, and three people respond, a couple people complain about the speed of progress. A new person introduces themself and asks about some core function of the game or guilds or whatnot.
There must be some other place where all the discussions are taking place. If so, the "forum" is more of a repository of info like a wiki, and emergency messaging system. Is that the goal? If so, tell me where the action is.
If not, I believe we need to treat the goal of the forum the same as the game: community. We want people building relationships, a place to hang out together and meet and mingle that will be fun and engaging. We have a general discussion area called General Pantheon Discussion, but it has turned into a public service announcement page like calling the electric company to view and report outages.
I recommend on the new website and forum space: A Tavern!
It's a place for people to be their character. Yes, it's kind of an RP corny thing that not everyone is necessarily into, BUT I think even those who don't usually RP would find themselves dropping a couple replies just to crack a joke or take a jab at someone. It would be something that many would check just to see what everyone else has been saying because it's not game mechanics questions, or wondering when alpha is happening. It's a place for people to get to know each other and have meaningful conversations set in the backdrop of Terminus, giving the forum some of the same tenets of the game itself.
Anyone out there even read this post?
Mathir said:There hasn't been much released on this game in several years since they went dark and mini-rebooted the direction of the game with Project Faerthale. Thus, there is no action. We'll see if Pre-Alpha 5 brings interest back to the project.
There's been a crapton released over the last four years. Have you been hiding under a rock? Project Faerthale wasn't a "mini-reboot". It was a "let's push through and get most of the mechanics in a 'completed' state".
Kalok said:Mathir said:There hasn't been much released on this game in several years since they went dark and mini-rebooted the direction of the game with Project Faerthale. Thus, there is no action. We'll see if Pre-Alpha 5 brings interest back to the project.
There's been a crapton released over the last four years. Have you been hiding under a rock? Project Faerthale wasn't a "mini-reboot". It was a "let's push through and get most of the mechanics in a 'completed' state".
Was going to say, I didnt think they changed directions. I thought PF was more of a drive to get systems done so they can focus on content/assets.
I read your post. Obv. The devs have been working hard and they do monthly video updates. There has been lots of progress towards the game. Imo, the graphics look great, the animations I've seen are good, perception system is cool as heck, atmospheres and climates are in the works, but, there is a lot of work to building a world with a small team. If you dig back through the forums you would see there's been a lot of discussion, on every imaginable topic. There will be a new website (minus new forums, same forums at first) very soon. Patience is best. Easy to say hard to do, I understand. Shakeout PA is coming in September. There is a discord which I've never used, so you can look into that more. Progress is absolutely being made. The fan base is there. It just takes time.
I would agree that the forums seem a little light on content lately, but there is only so many things to talk about that have seemingly been talked to death. As more dev streams come out there will be new things to talk about. I am really looking forward to more streams that are dedicated to a specific class, like VR did with the shame a couple months ago. That was awesome! With the PA5 shakeout right around the corner, hopefully we get a LOT of ingame content to wet our appetites and spark new interesting debates in the forums.
Also the new website, once it launches, should provide new things to talk about with the updated FAQ.
Thorndeep said:@benonal I see a lot of discussion on the official Pantheon discord. Also through the various content creators, community members come together around their streams. I like your idea of the Tavern. Maybe Kilsin would be willing to add a Tavern room on discord.
Official Pantheon discord what?
After a Dev video there is usually a bit of talk for a few days then it mostly dies down. There isn't much to talk about apart from speculation, in between time with no new stuff in front of us to be able to talk on.
General talking about death, corpse runs, grinding etc has taken place over the last 7+ years so I guess after that long there isn't a lot to keep going when it has all been said before :)
I am sure once PA is over with and Alpha comes around there will be much more to talk about as many more will be in game and able to talk about things, but I guess it will probably in the VIP boards where the Beta level pledges won't have access to until that stage rolls around.
You would probably find the VIP boards would have more posts in them since the people with access to them have been in PA and have actual gaming knowledge to discuss.
benonal said: And y'all continue making my point. We don't need to be just discussing the game!!!! This game is about community, not metagaming. Metagaming is not a core tenet of Pantheon. I'm not saying details aren't ok to talk about, of course they are, but the purpose of this game is to bring community back to MMOs and we don't have that on this forum. We need to focus the ancillary pieces of the game on the tenets just like the game. How do you gear merch toward more community interaction. How do you gear the forum to more community interaction. The answer is not more game information, it's stronger community relationships! Everyone should go back and read the original post cuz the responses don't sound like anyone read it. If the response to why isn't there more action on the forum is there isn't any new info on the game, you DO NOT HAVE community, you have public service announcement with an editorial section..
These forums are an artifact on a bygone era. They were very useful back when the team was actively collecting feedback about fundamental design decisions (4+ years ago). That time of course has passed and now the devs are completely focused on world building and executing on those design decisions. As we know, the website/forum update is long overdue. I think the devs would be the first to admit that these forums don't really serve the purpose they need to right now. Thus, the overhaul coming soon. That will most likely revamp things around here to more of a testing/collaborative/community focus and in turn bring in a lot more activity. Until then, we'll pretty much just have to wait.
Bazgrim said: I think the devs would be the first to admit that these forums don't really serve the purpose they need to right now. Thus, the overhaul coming soon. That will most likely revamp things around here to more of a testing/collaborative/community focus and in turn bring in a lot more activity. Until then, we'll pretty much just have to wait.
I think that's a fair assessment. I don't think we necessarily need the overhaul. I'm going to try my idea using the current forum and see if we can get to know one another in this community; kind of in the same vein as the old community spotlights. Wish me luck...
Forums as a focal point of community is pretty dated, especially forums specifically for/about a game that has not been released and isn't even near beta. On top of that as stated above, most of the ideas and mechanics have been beat to death over the past 5+ years leaving little left for now.
I really don't think you can force "community" and it is something that really doesn't tend to take off until later in a games development and especially after release, when all these people have something much stronger in common and can form shared experiences.
