After EQ Next, a lot of people are worried about the development of Pantheon, but I had a toilet apiphany about the 2 games the other day:
With EQ Next, we saw a lot of art, and dev streams were always about concept art and assets they had ready to put in the game, such as buildings and dungeon designs. Looking back, that was a red flag since we saw almost no gameplay and had zero info about classes/races etc.
With Pantheon, we're seeing the exact opposite, we have streams and demos with classes using skills, and a lot of the promises that were made (climbing, perception, large zones with no instances) are clearly coming to fruition, but we see a lot of grey boxing and unfinished assets.
I just thought it was interesting how the 2 projects are being developed very differently, and it also gives me hope Pantheon is in fact on track to becoming a reality.
Actually, I played EQ Next for many hours. There was an alpha that lots of people got to play as much as they wanted.
The problem wasn't so much that they had nothing, but that what they had was nothing like what people wanted.
I'm really not sure what happened to EQ Next. It only got as far as being a simplified minecraft with voxels before they canned it.
Pantheon *is* very different, though.
They just added and added stuff tell a vast majorty of people that tested it said it was not fun to play.
This is why I worry about Pantheon is as the game got more complex it got less fun there is a limit to what you can add before it just gets to be punishing. Death needs to hurt but if death hurts the game and the combat need to be in line you cant die to a RNG (bad dice roll) a few times a night.
Crafting was slow and overly complex it was boring made EQ2 crafting look good.
I am actually very excited to have the privelege to see behind the scenes. I wish the general public would understand that greybox does not mean a lack of development progress, in fact quite the opposite. I wish more people would understand that we almost never get to peak behind the curtain to watch the wizard work like this.
disposalist said:Actually, I played EQ Next for many hours. There was an alpha that lots of people got to play as much as they wanted.
The problem wasn't so much that they had nothing, but that what they had was nothing like what people wanted.
I'm really not sure what happened to EQ Next. It only got as far as being a simplified minecraft with voxels before they canned it.
Pantheon *is* very different, though.
I thought the "alpha" was for Landmark, which was a world builder. Is that what you played or did you play an actual game with quests/npc's/dungeons?
edictzero said:disposalist said:Actually, I played EQ Next for many hours. There was an alpha that lots of people got to play as much as they wanted.
The problem wasn't so much that they had nothing, but that what they had was nothing like what people wanted.
I'm really not sure what happened to EQ Next. It only got as far as being a simplified minecraft with voxels before they canned it.
Pantheon *is* very different, though.
I thought the "alpha" was for Landmark, which was a world builder. Is that what you played or did you play an actual game with quests/npc's/dungeons?
Maybe I have it wrong, but I seem to remember Landmark *was* the EQ Next alpha, essentially. They might have shuffled definitions around in a marketing effort to explain the gaping holes in what they were presenting, but that's what I thought.
Sorry if I got it wrong.
No, I didn't play anything with quests and whatnot, but they kept talking about how the 'digging and building simulator' that was Landmark developing into a game where you would dig down into dungeons and fight monsters, etc.
Dorotea is right, Landmark was based on EQ Next but was just a toolset and builder.
The original idea IIRC, was that as things progressed in EQ Next, parts of them would be implemented in to Landmark as a testing platform.
I enjoyed EQ Landmark as a building world, but the mobs and combat sucked, and seem to have no connection to the gameplay in general. They were just there.
EQN failed because they were pushing borken tech, between Story Bricks not working at all as intended and the voxel lagging out even the most powerful PC. The game never had a chance. Pantheon is not EQN. Pantheon has its own challenges. That of getting backing for a game thats proven to be fun and systems that work.
EQN and Landmark were both part of the hot mess SOE tried in making EQ2(WOW) part 2.
They just couldn't figure out what they were doing and had very poor guidance, direction and vision. Turnover is hell in game studios and SOE had lost all the good talent.
Landmark splintered off in the early part of the process as SOE was keen on letting users make content for their games. It was basically a sideways monetization scheme that never took off since WOWnext failed.
disposalist said:Actually, I played EQ Next for many hours. There was an alpha that lots of people got to play as much as they wanted.
Landmark was a completely seperate product from what I recall. It was just to demo the world building tools. I don't recall there even being combat...?
bigdogchris said:disposalist said:Actually, I played EQ Next for many hours. There was an alpha that lots of people got to play as much as they wanted.
Landmark was a completely seperate product from what I recall. It was just to demo the world building tools. I don't recall there even being combat...?
I don't think there was. It was mainly hyped and promoted with "contests" of world building so people couldn"t be refunded of pleges as it was officially "released.
There was combat it was weapon based change weapon change skills.
Landmark was originally the voxel building tool for "EQ Next" David Georgeson Director of development for SOE seen Landmark could be its own building game. He invisioned Voxels as the future of gaming and invisioned seveal games, all spin offs of Landmark (for those that were part of the Landmark Alpha as I was, you will remember character outfits for space and western as well as fantasy intended for EQ Next) These other future video based games would all share the Landmark "hub" where players made the content,
It was an incredibly revolutionary idea IMO and I'm not so sure he wasn't correct, just apperantly a bit ahead of it's time, As far as running on systems of the time, it ran great on mine, and I have since upgraded, it ran slow on my wife's but she still enjoyed building things with it. David made it clear they knew this, you don't build for the future by setting your sites in the past.
So, HOW does this measure up, match or compare to Pantheon? It's apples and orange. Landmark, Next was revolutionary, the industry just wasn't ready, be it the Voxel Technology, the PC technology , or just the players and what they were ready for.
That's not Pantheon! Pantheon isn't doing anything that revolutionary (this means they actually have a chance to hit the goal post). They have climbing everywhere (if that's what it really turns out to be, seems like most the vids I see are climbing on predetermined locations and EQ2 had that). They have the Disposition system, (and EQ Next had Storybricks, we will see)
This is an interesting thread. Well done!
A lot of it is quite accurate, but some things are a little off. There's a decent read here: The Game Archaeologist: The rise and fall of Landmark and EverQuest Next | Massively Overpowered (massivelyop.com)
Linda Carlson (our own Brasse!) and Dave Georgeson were both well-known MMO veterans with long histories of success on their resumes' and were a huge part of the excitement around the game, Dave WAS a big believer in the voxel system, which frankly was amazing, and I think if released today would likely work very well with the Nvidia RTX30xx series of video cards, and AMD's. Jeremy Soule was to do the music both both games, and the future looked very bright indeed.
But there were money issues, mainly from main corp. (Sony) concerning the SoE's expenditures. They sold SoE to Daybreak games, and all of the above were laid off.
There was a big internal test and at the end of it Russell Shanks, Daybreak's President, famously said in a letter that "the game wasn't fun" and cancelled it.
Pantheon and VR's paths seem to be managed much much better. I believe Ben Dean, and Chris Rowan are both doing an amazing job not only keeping the lights on, but are expanding with new hires, and the game continues to have progress each month. As good as Dave was, I think Chris Perkins has a far more complete, concrete, and realistic vision on the game's design. I actually would go as far to say that his vision may even be stronger than even Brad's, and Brad's was superb.
With a 2021 Alpha goal, we are already ahead of wherever EQN peaked. I still have faith in these guys.
You're totally right, which is why I get confused whenever people say anything along the lines of "Pantheon looks like its gonna flop just like EQNext." The development processes are almost polar opposites. I'm not saying Pantheon's development has been perfect - far from. But EQNext was smoke and mirrors through and through. There were reports of devs having to control the NPCs behind the scenes because there wasn't any AI yet in the very short gameplay clips they showed. They wanted to get the hype first and then figure the rest out later. It was completely backwards. There was almost nothing of substance. But as someone who has literally watched every minute of Pantheon gameplay footage in existence, there is definite substance. Sure, it's got a ways to go. But with their philosophy of "underpromise and overdeliver" and the sheer determination to get it done, I'm inclined to believe it'll get there eventually.
This saga inspired me to make this video: https://youtu.be/COuk26wI5zo
VR has also said in the past that is was important to make the main play cycle fun before they moved on to any of the heavy lifting of building the rest of the game.
Funny considering that EQ Next was dropeed exactly because they started getting things put together then said it wasnt fun.
Gintoki88 said:VR has also said in the past that is was important to make the main play cycle fun before they moved on to any of the heavy lifting of building the rest of the game.
Funny considering that EQ Next was dropeed exactly because they started getting things put together then said it wasnt fun.
Because those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. While Pantheon's development has of course had its flaws, Brad always said he wanted the mistakes to be new mistakes. And I think that's been the case overall. No one really knows the 100% best way to develop a full-scale crowdfunded MMORPG. But at least, they're avoiding many of the same pitfalls of Vanguard, EQN, etc.
i still think Voxel farms and and advance AI system is the next big MMO. 10 years from now system will be far more powerful and should be able to handle those systems. THe concept of EQNext was glorious. I followed it from start to finish and read all the lore, attended SoE Live in 2014. i was pretty excited for it.
Gintoki88 said:VR has also said in the past that is was important to make the main play cycle fun before they moved on to any of the heavy lifting of building the rest of the game.
Funny considering that EQ Next was dropeed exactly because they started getting things put together then said it wasnt fun.
i still don't buy that whole It's not fun excuse. Everybody was having a blast and the fans were still excited for it following the weekly live progress streams. Building competitions etc etc. i don't they were that far in development to determine if the game was fun or not. If that was case they should have released what they had to see what the corwdfunders thought. i wonder if somebody like Dave Gerorgson will ever tell us what really happened. Maybe when Daybreak collapses and all NDAs become null and void.