The Overlook
The map of Kingsreach: Check
World Map Concept: Check
Races and Classes: Check
We have whole regions (I am christening zones to now be labeled regions) that are fleshed out with terrain and biomes. We have areas within regions populated with their proper fauna and flora. We have areas rich with NPCs and quests and Perception ping diagrams ready to be installed once the programming is complete. We are moving onward and upward.
Wait. 2014 to now and we have one continent and a couple regions playable? What is that garbage? In the last Dev Stream we were given this screenshot of an overlook onto Silent Plains into Avendyr’s Pass, Wild’s End, Easter Plains, Azeris and Thronefast.
Barely anything was populated. You could just make out a few structures placed about the Silent Plains, no flora or fauna in sight. There were no towns in sight. A vast and empty world after eight years. So what’s up with that?
It may appear to the average consumer that this game has been limping along for years with barely anything to show for it. BUT that may not be the case.
During the Cohh Carnage stream July 2022, we were reminded that the largest technical pieces of the game’s development had been brought in game with the recent integration of the one-of-a-kind network stack the team has “marketed” as ViNL. With the swapping of ALL assets to the imbedded Unity HDRP and all rendering flowing through the native Jobs processing, everything that has been done to date on in house code is now in its forever home. Awww… so cute. So what, you ask?
Here is an older video, couple years old, of the team able to take things they created a couple years prior to this back in 2018 and transplanting the whole city of Hanggore with its completed assets to a totally new area of the map. This was done on earlier software that was exchanged with Maya which has more functionality, especially in conjunction with Unity. This means that anything they have previously made can, now that ALL assets are loaded into HDRP, be moved to wherever the devs need them.
Hold on! But what all assets to they have really? Come on, they’ve shown us some tree leaves during Project Faerthale. They keep telling us that they have a lot of art to do and they’re touting just now making the actual structures for humans after 5 years of showing off Thronefast, you say.
Actually, there is definitely more than you think. Let’s have a bit of a history lesson, shall we?
In 2014, the Kickstarter launched to much fanfare. There was lore and very early gameplay and, after a great effort, it just wasn’t coming together quite as they wanted. They rewrite the lore, the places in the world, the races and some of the classes (Last I checked, War Wizard is not a playable class). What about the art assets from that early time? Well…
Here’s a few building from back in the day. These were custom art assets that were made during the time. These were built near the Wastes zone (most likely on a continent now that will not be available until an expansion due to rewrites of lore) and near the Sunken Sanctum (also written out of canonical lore to date). Along with these were jungle docks, grass huts, beached pirate ships and…
Here is a portion of the Sunken Sanctum. Art assets for this enormous structure were created to build out an entire Sanctum, complete with large tower strangely resembling the Valley of the Watchmen drawings on our current concept map. And how about that statue? That statue was used in the first iteration of the Wraith’s home on streams back in 2017. If I’m not mistaken, I believe these fortress assets were also used there as well…
Go back and watch the stream in 2017 where they first discuss and show off some of Sorhiryth and the Wraiths. Looks like they added some moss and reused these early assets. Now, the wraiths have been moved again. Will they use these assets or do they have new assets and these are free to be used for something else? They point is, VR has not shied away from using older assets in new ways.
And what about the character assets; the clothing, the weapons from these last two pictures? They told us in the past few months that they have artists working on standard weapons for humans. So are they just now making weapons? NO.
Beside the weapons shown above, how about all the weapons that the orcs are using in Hanggore on more recent streams? How about the weapons staves used by the wraiths in the depths of Halnir? What about all the weapons donned by the denizens of Black Rose Keep? They’re all still there. They may or may not be styles for a particular culture, but can be repurposed for special items with some tweaks.
The armor and clothing is the same. Everyone got excited about this outfit during the Fortress Deviare demo…
Psh, that old thing is just one of many outfits that have been created for this game. Aside from the above, do you remember these?
And how about that get-up? Wonder what they did with that early design???
Now, I know it isn’t the same. Art models, however, are works in progress most times. All of the pieces here are made rigged to stretch to fit to a model’s mesh. All of the older outfits can be made to stretch to the new character models, and all can be changed, enhanced, scabbed, scrapped for parts. They are all useable assets.
OK, so maybe they have some outfits, you say. And maybe they have some pieces of terrain and buildings they just haven’t shown off for awhile that are waiting to be placed on the newly created terrain on OTHER CONTINENTS. What are we gonna fight? We’ve seen bears, foxes and bunnies, vale hawks, wolves, but what about other stuff? You mean like skeletons, ghosts, banshees, orcs, werewolves, rock golems, Nightwolves, Lycandrells, snakes, lizardmen, evil dwarves, Tohrn elves, goblins, imps, raid bosses, group bosses, ratkin, spriggans, giants, spiders, and bandits? Oh, yeah, we’ve already seen all of those as well.
Goblins and imps, what? Yes, they’re different, as are another unknown species…
And let’s not forget that these are reused, recolored and readorned for different places around the world for different factions, different subspecies even. Let’s take a look at Lycanthropes as an example of this.
According to the lore, there are three different kinds: Lycandrells, Nightwolves, and werewolves. Did you know we have already unofficially seen all three of these in game streams?
Lycandrells (by the way, this was the first time we saw any lycanthrope models, and VR nor the community at large even took notice of this major reveal, except me):
Nightwolves:
Werewolves:
So, why is it that so many casual consumers have such a negative look at where Pantheon is currently? Well, it is simple to take away from the content put out by VR that very few things are actually done because “done” is subjective.
Most games are created under the cover of night. Final Fantasy 16 has had an announcement made about its main characters and some footage for the past two years. Nothing else has ever been seen since. Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part Two is slated to come out by Square Enix winter 2023 and nobody has seen any footage of anything related to it. Consumers are used to seeing things that are polished and ready. This has been stated by VR multiple times. They are waiting to show things to the masses when they have a certain level of polish and when they hit milestones they clued in the public about. They have also made it clear that they are not interested in showing off everything they are doing. There must remain some mysteries for the consumer. And some things slip in over time and aren't highlighted right away. Remember the last Developer Stream where they showed off “new” mining nodes for gems?
Here’s a picture from A YEAR earlier in the depths of Halnir Cave…
Chris Perkins said that these nodes would not be lying on the surface, but these particular gemstones would only be found deep underground in hard content. Ta-Da! They were in Halnir’s Cave a year earlier. The game is meant to be explored. They pick a specific race and area to highlight to show off mechanics and art and exploration. Did you know they had a Wild’s End stream way back in 2017? Things change, but art assets have been maintained and groomed over the years, but the content has been there.
You have seen above content for sandy beaches, jungles, ships, docks, and buildings that have not been show since. South Saol had a stream as far back as the Wild’s End stream. Most of the work done in 2014 and 2015 was on desert and jungle assets, ships and volcanoes, and black rocks. In a not so distant post, one VR member mentioned the black sand beaches where the Archai reside and that they have seen them.
I will leave you with one more anecdote. Let’s look at a region of the concept may, Vae Wood.
Notice the circular tower on Vae Wood? We have already seen areas of Thronefast in other articles in “THE MAP” series that have been cleared off for massive structures that reside on the landscape. Take a look at these areas released with THE MAP back over a year ago…
These highlighted areas can be perused at your convenience on the HD version of THE MAP released by VR a while back. They clearly show areas on the map that have specific terrain manipulation for structures. And look, they’re even in circular fashion…
I do not doubt that there is a lot more art, story, modeling that is to be done. But if you think what you’ve seen lately is what VR has, you need to not overlook the hidden gems.
Benonai
Leader of the Resistance Against the Corrupt House of Amensol
Viva RACHA
Game development (especially MMOs) suffers from a distortion of progress. In most human endeavors, it's fairly easy to see how far along something is. But with software, often you need to build most of the pieces before you can put much of anything together. This creates the illusion of a lack of progress. You might be 75% done but have someone that looks only 25% done (these numbers are made-up to illustrate the concept). And on top of all that, any major creative project will go through various drafts and changes, further making it look like it's taking too long.
Add in that this is crowd-funded, which necessitates announcing it publicly right away and drumming up the interest and support necessary to complete it. Compare that with a AAA studio with a large team working on something for years before making any announcements and I understand why it feels like it's taking so long.
Hopefully, you are not just preaching to the choir.
'Well, it is simple to take away from the content put out by VR that very few things are actually done because “done” is subjective.' Can't say I agree with calling "done" subjective. PA ready or Alpha ready sure, but done means that the 'things' of which you speak need never be touched again.
I was just looking over "the visual storyboard of Pantheon from 2014" using a link to LoP from Bazgrim's newsletter. The sheer volume of work that has been done since compliments your post.
Thanks for your effort here. I will still groan within myself every time I see all of the TO DOs in the P:RotF newsletter, but I can always look back down the MMOmountain and see how far they have come.
Thunderleg said:'Well, it is simple to take away from the content put out by VR that very few things are actually done because “done” is subjective.' Can't say I agree with calling "done" subjective. PA ready or Alpha ready sure, but done means that the 'things' of which you speak need never be touched again.
Just wanted to clarify here. When I go to a restaurant and the waiter asks if I'm done eating, i can say yes but I'm still going to eat again, and if it was good, maybe even there. The Alpha checklist ticks projects off as complete, but most of those things will be iterated well into the future. Even when a game launches, you couldn't say it was done by the standard of never touched again. So that's what i mean by the term done is subjective, not in its intent, but in its use.
Ooh, gotta go. My biscuits are done...
Yeah good stuff, Ben.
I could go dig up precise quotes coz Joppa so often says things like "we'd love to show you more" or even further explaining that there is of course much more, but they don't *want* to 'spoil' all the content, even for backers under NDA.
Also, when the re-factoring, re-tooling, un-prototyping, whatever-you-want-to-call-it was done they weren't 'throwing away' all the design work or even all the coding and assets.
Maybe I have an advantage of being a software developer myself and knowing that things never go as planned, go around and around, and you can even 'start over' several times in a project, but at each stage there is a ton of work - all the best stuff of course - carried forward.
Solid post Benonai. It's been years since I've seen some of those older screenshots and you've really plucked some gems from some of the older released material and matched it flawlessly with what's been pushed out more recently. You've a keen eye for detail and it's making me re-watch and dig through the Library more and more.
Sometimes I look at what's already been released and I have a guilty feeling like i've already been spoiled of things to come. Part of me knows I should look away, and the other part says keep looking! Pantheon is making great progress and the choice to hold back details will only make that adventure that much more majestical when we experience it for the first time, IMO.
I have promoted this topic as part of my CM content; please continue the discussion and have fun! :)
"Hot Topic - The Great Overlook - Check out this amazing throwback post from our community member Benonai and see how far we've come. Did you catch some of these details? https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/13899/the-great-overlook"
Benonai said: Thanks Arkonis. Super big shout out to Baz and Co. for their work on the Library of Pantheon which saved me hours of digging to get what I needed. And a shout out by Kilsin!? This must be what it's like to be a VIP. I wonder if I'll be invited to the Grammys this year?
Good stuff Benonai! Glad the Library has been of use to you. This is exactly the sort of thing we imagined and hoped people would do when we made it
I can't help but wonder since this was upgraded to community spotlight and VR promoted it, does this mean that the claims in here are hitting on some truth? Hopefully, we can get some kind of response on the upcoming dev stream about the state of older art assets and work done on places that are not being shown off...
Benonai said:I can't help but wonder since this was upgraded to community spotlight and VR promoted it, does this mean that the claims in here are hitting on some truth? Hopefully, we can get some kind of response on the upcoming dev stream about the state of older art assets and work done on places that are not being shown off...
The spotlight and promo from a sole act from myself, for CM content mate. there's no hidden meaning behind it other than I am impressed with your post and wanted more people to see it, I even shared it with the team :)
You are truly appreciated for this dude. Most excellent stuff. I watch the older streams all the time. I don't see it as just 'older stuff.' As you have shown, there is lots of relevant and insightful information in those older streams that we can see value in today when watching the new stuff. At the same time, I don't get stuck on expecting everything I saw in those older streams. I leave room for them to grow and evolve. All of this is a work in progress and I'm enjoying the ride...bumbs and all.