Ok. Was this the Twilight Zone? Some kind of joke? Did I miss the real stream? This stream is to show the progress of five years of work.. Most especially the last two years of Project Faerthale. This was the most pathetic thing I have ever seen from an mmorpg. Ever. Joppa is talking about how cool it is that a Dire Lord is KOS in a "good town"? O look the NPC knows I'm a shaman? You're proud of this? This was interesting 20 years ago when it was first done. Joppa was proud of a fetch quest of bring me a wolf pelt and I'll make you a tunic? This was a gigantic step backward. Gigantic. The streams we've seen of BRK were so much better I can't even believe it. Past exposure to Halnir cave, better. You stream 20 minutes of one level one guy killing level one wolves?!?! You show ten minutes of three guys that can't kill a mage? You're five years in and this is what you show the world? This is what you're telling people that PA5 shakeout will test? This is what you're proud of? MASSIVE FAIL.
I can play PA5, but I probably wont after seeing that stream. I was looking forward to it so much, when you put money into it thats fine, I love the game and I want to play.
Well this stream was not of Faerthale. Faerthale is the zone that is effectively to the point of beta ready, and I believe the only one to that point, not sure on dungeons and the like though. What they showed tonight was the greyboxed version of a new zone Thronefast, Throwfast, well something fast... Oddly it took them like 5 or 10 minutes to even say what we were seeing which had me confused / horrified for a bit.
They have been talking about their build process for years now on how they used Faerthale to try to iron out the zone building process and help show off the game. If every zone was as completed as Faerthale we would probably be in beta. I assume that is why they showed this new zone they are working on to make that clear the game is not alpha ready.
Different zones are at different levels of development... I wish all the other zones were up to this point.
I think some of you are missing the point with the stream entirely. I'm pretty sure the point of this stream was to show testers what they should expect in their first thirty minutes of gameplay.
I think it's also fairly important to note that the area being shown was not part of Faerthale which has been polished up fairly well and it was the goal of Project Faerthale to develop systems and resources to make building the rest of the world more streamline. Expecting an area that is not Faerthale to be as polished as the content in Faerthale when they were still working in Faerthale a couple of months ago is not very realistic.
Also, I think that they mentioned last month or maybe two months ago that testers would be placed in an earlier version of the game that isn't current. I'm not 100% sure about this but I think I recall that being mentioned.
I've got to be honest in saying that for the vast majority of Pantheons development, I’ve never really cared for the look of certain aspects of the game; particularly the terrain meshes. They always just felt off, bland in a way, and as a result, I just wasn't being drawn in on an immersive level. It was almost as if the terrain meshes were just the product of a random terrain generator, with a few structural elements sprinkled in here and there as an afterthought. They just lacked that hand crafted personal touch.
The new direction they seem to be heading with zone designs are now filling a void that was previously keeping me from finding Terminus aesthetically pleasing. It's as if only just now, VR is putting a focus on handcrafting the terrain based on the games narrative rather than the other way around. I think this will result in a much more pleasing and immersive experience and I’m really looking forward to seeing how this new approach to zone design carries over into areas we have not yet seen.
With what I am starting to see in terms of these revisions, I am more than willing to wait however long it takes.
FatedEmperor said:I think some of you are missing the point with the stream entirely. I'm pretty sure the point of this stream was to show testers what they should expect in their first thirty minutes of gameplay.
- They demonstrated how you will interact with the character creation screen and stat points.
- They demonstrated that you would be interacting with the perception system immediately.
- They showed how the perception system could lead players to points of interest if they were to follow it, and that the system was even friendly enough to indicate an NPC which you might want to seak out once you got into town.
- They showed one way that new characters would be able to start obtaining gear via the leatherworking quest. Not the most exciting and dynamic quest sure but an introduction into initial gearing for new players.
- They demonstrated power progression and showed that by the time you reached level 6 you would have a good arsenal of abilities.
- They showed how difficult and challenging combat was in a scaling manner, from Ronick being able to solo wolves at level 1 to a group of three struggling to deal with mobs 3 levels high than them.
- They also demonstrated how the limited classes could make combat a bit more difficult for smaller groups, no enchanter to CC really made dealing with two mages at once almost impossible with only 3 people. Maybe if they had a full group of with at least two healers rotating heals.
I think it's also fairly important to note that the area being shown was not part of Faerthale which has been polished up fairly well and it was the goal of Project Faerthale to develop systems and resources to make building the rest of the world more streamline. Expecting an area that is not Faerthale to be as polished as the content in Faerthale when they were still working in Faerthale a couple of months ago is not very realistic.
Also, I think that they mentioned last month or maybe two months ago that testers would be placed in an earlier version of the game that isn't current. I'm not 100% sure about this but I think I recall that being mentioned.
This sounds about right to me. I'm very pessimistic about the development speed and launch of this game, but I thought the stream served its purpose. At some point in the stream you can see the city of Thronefast way up on the hill across the water, it doesn't look like they scrapped the old zone, just maybe added to it. We'll see. I thought the newbie experience reminded me of a mix of EQ1 and classic WoW, which is a good spot to be in my mind. I actually liked this stream because of that feeling. Obviously needs a ton of work and polish, but definitely the right track for a newbie experience in my book. That being said, you guys (VR) are going to have to pull the curtain back on Project Faerthale at some point in all its glory. It's been two years, we've seen some of what you've done, but everyone is hoping you have a lot more still to reveal. Development appears unreasonably slow and that is what is smothering excitement for this title.
philo said:Hokanu said:thats a half done zone, so.. probably a bit unfair to compare it to a fully finished zone.
That was thronefast...which has been shown repeatedly. They called the old, more detailed, version the "temporary version". It does seem strange. I wonder why?
I think that 1st version was built waaay back in the day wasnt it when they were showing off basic things like early water and grass graphics. Maybe they decided it didnt reflect the PF quality of art and design direction we're seeing with Pantheon these days.
MauvaisOeil said:I liked the streeam for what it was meant to be.
Yep, me to, it was definitely not about the environmental graphics, so with that said.. I loved the pace, the chatty npc's, the dialogue changes depending on what has been achieved, seeing or at least hearing about joppa getting destroyed by guards and able to buy for being a disgusting Dire lord, seeing the climbing stamina in action gives a good idea of that there isnt a lot of time to much around on walls which is cool and of course seeing a spell casting npc dropping some heavy bombs onto adventurers who were getting a bit comfortable.
philo said:Hokanu said:thats a half done zone, so.. probably a bit unfair to compare it to a fully finished zone.
That was thronefast...which has been shown repeatedly. They called the old, more detailed, version the "temporary version". It does seem strange. I wonder why?
Thronefast has been completely revamped, the previous placeholder art is being replaced, as we have said for all the zones. It is not finished, which is why we need testers to test it.
I'm closing this thread as the reason was explained in the stream which I will link below.