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Okay, here it is, the MEGA RECAP!!!

    • 9115 posts
    March 12, 2021 8:24 PM PST
    Okay, here it is, the MEGA RECAP!!!
     
    Four different points of view with a Lore and Highlights videos to round them all up, ENJOY!
     
    BazgrimTV - 15 mins of Highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H5Mskkv0So
     
    Many hours of entertainment from various perspectives, we hope you enjoy! :)
     

    This post was edited by VR-Mod1 at March 12, 2021 9:43 PM PST
    • 560 posts
    March 13, 2021 4:59 PM PST

    I have now watched from multiple perspectives and I am eager to play now more than ever. I realize that many are concerned about the rouge being over powered and I get that but it also just looked like a fun class to play. I love it when a class can utilizes their abilities in multiple interesting ways. As it seems VR gets how important it is to balance them with downsides like having the rouges dps drop to 0 when doing CC. But I am just focused on the fun aspect I hope all or most at least classes are fun to play.

    As cool as the videos are, I really hope you move on from that dungeon. It is just not a good location for sharing the game over video. In person it must feel atmospheric but in video it is just dark and cramped making it hard to see anything.

    A quick question that I am sure will be resolved if not already. What is it with climbing down? It seems there is no way to safely climb down?

    • 2886 posts
    March 13, 2021 5:30 PM PST

    starblight said:

    A quick question that I am sure will be resolved if not already. What is it with climbing down? It seems there is no way to safely climb down?

    There is, but imo it's not very intuitive. You have to be facing the edge and then hold down shift and then basically walk off the edge and that will engage climbing. I do hope they tweak this. So that you can either latch on while walking backwards off the edge, or just make it auto-detect the ledge and start climbing. It's the one thing about climbing that feels clunky right now, which is probably why none of us really bothered doing it in this stream and just opted to fall instead lol - it's faster :P Although as I said toward the end of the stream, it's surprisingly easy to forget that climbing is even an option. After years of not being able to climb in MMOs, even though I cognitively know that it's a big part of exploration in Pantheon, it's just not the first thing I think of yet.

    • 560 posts
    March 13, 2021 6:32 PM PST

    @Bazgrim Thanks for the details. If shift is crouch I could see this working well in the long run though I would want to remap the key most likely. It is neat that clibming is both important and at the same time not at all in your face. Speaks volumes on how well it was implumented.

    • 41 posts
    March 14, 2021 1:52 AM PST

    Loved the different view points and the "feel" of the dungeon. Not having every area in a game a dayglow Aquaman light fest (unless infra/ultravision). I like the idea of having to prepare mundane items to explore areas (light source, climbing enhancements, environmental protections, etc.)

     

    I didn't feel the rogue was overpowered except that maybe CC was a little TOO readily available at all times, but it sounded to me like if you didn't know the class you wouldn't know how to make that work very well.  Zero DPS and able to progress your group without a CC dedicated class is a good trade off.  Hopefully other classes will be able to do similar things.

    • 24 posts
    March 14, 2021 5:34 AM PDT

    I have watched them all and it looks great but have a couple of things to talk about.

    Hopefully they will give an option to remove the green health bars over each player, it shows the same thing on the group window.  This would make it less busy and easier to see what is going on in the center of the screen were the fighting is going on.

    For me it is too dark in that area, hopefully they will put in armor or weapons as a light source instead of just torches, they did this in EQ.  Or they can put in a vision buf to allow us to see better. At the end of the 90 minutes on each video my eye were very tired from straining to see.  I was not using a small monitor, LG 3840x1600, 37"

    Would also like an option to move my group mates casting bar to a text window instead of over their heads, to me, over thier heads does not help but does add to the clutter in the fighting area.

    I mainly play caster classes and not being able to see Therek's full screen was a bummer.

    Maybe next time an enchanter can play and we can see the difference in CC methods.

    Thanks for the different views I liked that very much.


    This post was edited by rkwiles at March 14, 2021 6:05 AM PDT
    • 13 posts
    March 14, 2021 11:49 AM PDT

    Yeah I watched several as well: it is indeed nice to watch the same content from multiple perspectives. I'm quite interested in seeing how the different classes work in practice, even the ones I am not interested in in actually playing myself.

     

    As for the darkness, keep in mind YouTube's compression algorythms are not favourable for displaying detail in dark areas: you'll see a lot of pixelation which is not indicative of what you'd actually look at in-game.

    Later versions of the game will also support a more varied options menu I reckon. While the area is clearly meant to be dark, there might be options added later on in development that alter lighting in such a way some of the detriments might be a bit mitigated.

    • 612 posts
    March 14, 2021 2:23 PM PDT

    Just a reminder, I try to update the Stream Links post with all the various streams from everyone. All of these are now in the post, so you if you ever miss anything, you can try looking there just in case Kilsin doesn't make a post about them specifically like this.

    • 1992 posts
    March 14, 2021 4:11 PM PDT

    Thanks Goofy, your list is a big help.

    • 18 posts
    March 15, 2021 9:12 AM PDT

    The more I watch these videos, the more I want them to do it all over again with the rest of the classes as well :D

    Can. Not. Get. Enough.

    • 13 posts
    March 15, 2021 10:33 AM PDT

    Right? I have watched all the streams multiple times now, and I can't wait for more... :D

    • 184 posts
    March 16, 2021 9:09 AM PDT

         So I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet! Not a big deal since this is the time to make adjustments, but I felt the difficulty was still very low! It's not even the OP rogue CC or the fact that they could tank and dps so easily (even the rogue was offtanking the adds for the boss fight, and the adds melted in like 2 seconds). Never felt dramatic or seemed at all challenging, and this was supposed to be an example of challenge we should expect in game (according to joppa in this stream). The biggest thing I noticed is that the mobs didn't even run away?! What was going on there? Level 10 mobs in everquest would be sprinting away quicker than these mobs did and bringing back friends, and that is just the old basic disposition most games have; where were the others? The only disposition I even saw that remotely gave them a shock or scare was the pyrophobic spider at the beginning (which also melted in 2 hits). They need more of those innovative dispositions and other challenges to freshen it up and make us think. I know this is all obvious but I was surprised at the lack of mechanics shown in this demo compared to what we've seen in the past, especially with them starting off the stream saying its going to be a true representative challenge. They also removed some spells and trhings ive seen before, saying they arent "in this build of the game." So maybe this build of the game also removed all of the dispositions too? I dont know, strange and a bit anti climactic.

         Just hard to keep track of the game's overall progress when things are removed so often froim a "build." The january roundtable also noted that they needed another phase that will takes "weeks and weeks," requiring them to pause all development and put hands on deck (what this is for was a bit obscure to me, for I thought they already did that HUGE overhaul to allow our designers to more rapidly create and expand on content in that video showing all of the trees mountains and automated topography with that new revamp they did a few months back). BUt apparently they need to do another one according to the CEO. I'm a long time backer, so I'm not trying to start one of "those threads" if you know what I mean, but it is a new frustration I've discovered from this stream, for so many repeated "several month system overhauls" to be needed in addition to not including so many mechanics that are supposed to be unique to pantheon. We still seem a long ways out based on all of these unforseen random side projects that take months to change systems that are not explained or understood. I'm glad we are getting the honest truth about these overhauls but just wondering how far down the light at the end of the tunnel is. In the past, I think we all assumed it was content/world creation primarily holding us back. But now, with that one huge overhaul months back and now another one needed, it feels like there are so many more obstacles in our path before we even get to knocking out the world building and so many other things they listed in the january roundtable that still sets us months or even realistically a year+ from alpha. 

         All in all, what's there and completed looks decent and fun, but again it's missing so many aforementioned core mechanics (many that were showcased in the past but removed in this build) that are supposed to be innovative to the genre and sort of the foundation/branding for this game and a reason for players to want to come back and fill the mmorpg void. As of now it just feels like we are in many ways at a bit of a  stand still for whatever reason. Very easy boss. very easy clearing. Well easy bosses, plural I should say. That spider, as cool as the mist and everything seemed, is just again another anticlimactic example because it was easier than most WoW mobs, and the main tank had a 50% attribute debuff on him lol... Nothing in this game is going to be cool if it's as easy as this dungeon was. People are first and foremost signing up for the challenge this mmo promises. I really haven't seen that fresh challenege to date... I would very much love to see ONE dungeon or even outside camp area that they have to actually think about dispositions, atmospheres, and everything else the game is supposed to entail. Maybe it was just the way the stream was presented, but I expected to see much, much more. Id be shocked if we saw alpha this year at this rate. I just wish the vague "system overhauls" were better explained. I have never heard of this before. Is it a shortsight of our development team, or are other Mmo studios just so much larger that little overhaul issues like this are such a small blip on the radar that it never creates a real issue or even topic on a forum? I think what scared me most is the ceo in january saying basically they had to make a "hard code" demo version of the game first to show peopole it worked before they basically started to develop the actual game. Which, to bring it full circle, to me sounds like they never were even developing the final build or anything close to it the past couple years when we all thought alpha might come; rather it was one huge extended demo for investors until we either got enough funding or enough interest from the public for angel's to actually build out what we hoped would be the final game/client. This would explain why everything keeps getting overhauled completly, with yet another one needed here soon. And then all of his talk about needing a CSR team and front office to support the launch/alpha etc; basically he was going through a huge checklist of things we dont have and are nowhere near having. Again, not trying to create a hate post, but rather trying to gain some feedback on this new info I found, to see if I need to again re evaluate my expectations for alpha/beta let alone release time. I thnk we all expected alpha by the end of the year. Based on our progress though, I dont see how that could happen. At this point we all actually will be in different places in our life with different amounts of time to dedicate to the game. Never thought it would take THIS long lol. We've been at this for a long time boys.

    • 11 posts
    March 17, 2021 9:07 AM PDT

    Watched Nathan's channel, thinking of upgrading my pledge.

    • 15 posts
    March 17, 2021 10:12 AM PDT

    Zuljan said:

         Just hard to keep track of the game's overall progress when things are removed so often froim a "build." The january roundtable also noted that they needed another phase that will takes "weeks and weeks," requiring them to pause all development and put hands on deck (what this is for was a bit obscure to me, for I thought they already did that HUGE overhaul to allow our designers to more rapidly create and expand on content in that video showing all of the trees mountains and automated topography with that new revamp they did a few months back).

    He's talking about replacing their network stack with the new, more advanced one they've built.

    From wikipedia: "The protocol stack or network stack is an implementation of a computer networking protocol suite or protocol family. Some of these terms are used interchangeably but strictly speaking, the suite is the definition of the communication protocols, and the stack is the software implementation of them."

    • 184 posts
    March 18, 2021 12:32 PM PDT

    He's talking about replacing their network stack with the new, more advanced one they've built.

    From wikipedia: "The protocol stack or network stack is an implementation of a computer networking protocol suite or protocol family. Some of these terms are used interchangeably but strictly speaking, the suite is the definition of the communication protocols, and the stack is the software implementation of them."

     

    Thanks. Well at least from further digging I found that they're realistically hopeful for Alpha this year. First time I've seen them provide anything near concrete for dates, so that seems promising. Defeinitely seemed cheek in tongue the way he was addressing it, so late this year may be best case scenario, but I'd still be really happy with that. 

    • 8 posts
    March 21, 2021 4:32 PM PDT

    what do i have to pay to play now if i can pay to get to play now how?

     

    • 392 posts
    March 21, 2021 8:18 PM PDT

    snowman301 said:

    what do i have to pay to play now if i can pay to get to play now how?

    Short answer is the 1K pleade for Pre-Alpha access here: http://www.pantheonmmo.com/pledge/

    Long answer is even with that pledge its still limited to when they prepare and open up a test server so even if you did pay for the correct pledge you would still be waiting for the next test window.


    This post was edited by Gintoki88 at March 21, 2021 8:19 PM PDT