Ashreon said:I'm sorry, but being a game developer myself and working for an actual successful company. I can tell that the drivel you just quoted is a lie.
It is PR speak for "we dug ourselves into a hole and now we don't know how to get out of it". I also know why you dug yourself into a hole that you can no longer find a way out of - because you spend so much damn time fiddling with your thumbs.
So you're saying not only are they lying, but it's also completely impossible that the art changed because it would perform better on more machines, reduce the time it takes the art development pipeline to generate new assets, be more affordable by saving development time, and help reach new audience with a more familiar art style?
That sounds pretty reasonable to me.
Ashreon said:There has been zero planning when it concerns this project. Zero. You didn't even have your pipeline tools in place until a good year or two ago and now, your funds are definitely also on the low side and you are panicking and boy am I glad young software engineer student me did not pledge a lot of money, but had the foresight to say: No, I want actual results.
I mean for the love of all.. Most of those models and their animations are something a first year Animator/3D Model student produces.. Effing wings clipping through a Gryphon.. Embarrasing.
Zero planning? No. Perhaps mismanaged planning over the years (it has been quite a bumpy ride because of unfortunate circumstances over the years), but to essentially claim they have no project manager, design docs, software proj docs, workboards, workflow managers, etc. is extremely inaccurate.
You have every right to be upset over whatever it is you're upset about. But tearing down the team and attacking them does nothing; it's counterproductive to providing feedback.
But Ashreon is right.
Its not just the childish style of the new art, its the extreme lack of quality.
No reasonably run professional outfit would put out such a low grade product like this.
There really is no excuse for it.
Only hope now would be for them to stick with the original art and actually put in the long difficult hours of work (possibly at reduced salaries) to make it happen.
But i think we all know there is zero chance of that.
lotuss79 said:But Ashreon is right.
Its not just the childish style of the new art, its the extreme lack of quality.
No reasonably run professional outfit would put out such a low grade product like this.
There really is no excuse for it.
Ah. So belittling and tearing down the developers is constructive criticism and acceptable feedback? Got it.
lotuss79 said:Only hope now would be for them to stick with the original art and actually put in the long difficult hours of work (possibly at reduced salaries) to make it happen.
But i think we all know there is zero chance of that.
What original art? The one built around the Unity Asset Store that had heavily mismatching and clashing styles that weren't unique in any sense and had no self identity?
This is completely asinine. No one should have to work at reduced salaries for any reason. Period.
Nenski said:lotuss79 said:But Ashreon is right.
Its not just the childish style of the new art, its the extreme lack of quality.
No reasonably run professional outfit would put out such a low grade product like this.
There really is no excuse for it.
Ah. So belittling and tearing down the developers is constructive criticism and acceptable feedback? Got it.
lotuss79 said:Only hope now would be for them to stick with the original art and actually put in the long difficult hours of work (possibly at reduced salaries) to make it happen.
But i think we all know there is zero chance of that.
What original art style? The one built around the Unity Asset Store that had heavily mismatching and clashing styles that weren't unique in any sense and had no self identity?
This is completely asinine. No one should have to work at reduced salaries for any reason. Period.
For your first point, yes.
After 10 years of development, for this to be what they have to show for it. We are totally justified in being critical of their work.
For your second point, again yes.
There is no point in having a unique "Pantheon Style" if that style is utter garbage.
Third point, no. People involved in any project should be willing to put in extra hours if they are behind (in this case years behind).
They are responsible for this and have not delivered.
Salaries for years. No game.
I just wanted top hop on here hoping that my post on the offical forums will be heard. The new art direction is bad it doesnt represent what the original idea was or Brad's vision we all came to support.
While I dont mind the hand painted look. It does not look good at this point it does not look clean at all. We could look at things such as Wild Star who also shared this vision and it looked tremendiously better. We need darker more realistic hand painted models. What we have seen looks goofy like something you would see on facebook for a mobile game.
I emplor you to please reconsider this move and either go back to the drawing board, or revert back to what you originally had and just work on it. While I undertsand higher fidelity things take longer to do we still do not have things even in grey box or systems completed so even with the change in art direction the time and effort do not correlate on those 2 things.
I would love to be told otherwise, but We need better if we are going to go thie route. Like I said take inspiration in art direction from Warhammer, and wildstar. both were styilized and Warhammer had Da Grit and wildstar had those really high quality hand painted graphics with super clean edges. Even today widoes of the game still look good grahically.
Despite all that is said, pro or against the updated visuals, one thing is for sure, we are all passionate about this game. This includes not only us, but everyone working on this game. VR is a buisness, and just like any other business, they have a game plan and sometimes that game plan has to change. And that change might be what is in the best interest of that business. I am pretty sure VR had man discusstions about this and it wasn't something that was done just overnight.
Are we upset about the changes, well the forum speaks for themselves, but we have a right to voice our frustrations and our concerns, but that's to be expected. And VR will be expected to continue the game as THEY see fit. We have the choice to either remain here and continue to wait or bow out. No harm no foul.
Bottom line, though it is a huge part of the game, artwork is not king, content is king.
In the meantime I will wait, playing other games to pass the time while sipping on either a HAZY IP from a local brewery in Carlsbad or Escondido or maybe a 25 year old bottle of Scotch.
Cheers to all my fellow gamers who are just as passtionate about this game as I am.
Oh and DING!! I just leveled up in maturity. :)
Just a reminder for those that are near, or have already crossed the line, there are guidelines for posting on these forums. Please be considerate when you're posting about VR staff (and each other), even if you've been following for 10 years and you feel like you have the right.
https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/1595/pantheon-community-guidelines
Ashreon said:Savanja said:lotuss79 said:This just can't be the case.
You could have always simplified the graphics while retaining a "realism" style.
This shift to a cartoony style is a fundamental imaging change thats designed to appeal to a "wider demographic".
The producers letter announcing this change stated so very clearly.
For your reading enjoyment, a quote from the Producer's Letter stating the why:
We have opted to shift our in-game art direction to address several needs:
Performance – We have run into difficulty with the former art performing well on even the beefiest of machines. We have made progress on this front but ultimately determined we could get better gains by a shift in style.
Speed of Development – The shift speeds up the art pipeline substantially. What would sometimes take weeks now can take days, or in some cases, hours.
Sustainability – With the new art direction, we feel confident we can achieve our long-term goals with an indie-sized development team. It is not only faster, but more affordable.
Marketability – One of the top comments we routinely receive from the public is how the game looks old or unappealing. This is an opportunity to reach a broader, more contemporary audience.
It was not just a matter of turning down the realism. 3D art rendering is very intensive, time-consuming, and resource-hoarding. If we had tons of funding and a huge staff of 3D artists, then realism would have been the way to go. We don't.
I'm sorry, but being a game developer myself and working for an actual successful company. I can tell that the drivel you just quoted is a lie.
It is PR speak for "we dug ourselves into a hole and now we don't know how to get out of it". I also know why you dug yourself into a hole that you can no longer find a way out of - because you spend so much damn time fiddling with your thumbs.
There has been zero planning when it concerns this project. Zero. You didn't even have your pipeline tools in place until a good year or two ago and now, your funds are definitely also on the low side and you are panicking and boy am I glad young software engineer student me did not pledge a lot of money, but had the foresight to say: No, I want actual results.
I mean for the love of all.. Most of those models and their animations are something a first year Animator/3D Model student produces.. Effing wings clipping through a Gryphon.. Embarrasing.
This is a very immature, naive and rude piece of feedback.
It's quite clear where you are on the Dunning-Kruger chart.
Hello everyone,
This is for dev team. I'm willing to help with 3d art if needed (modeling, texturing, UVs or anything related with the 3d workflow). I know with an small art team is difficult to achieve some goals, and the volunteer work can be really usefull in many aspects. In case you guys think about it in the future, let us know plz.
Kind regards.
I know you're not looking for a new career, but this is probably still the best way to let them know that you're interested in helping:
https://visionaryrealms.com/company/career/
Ranarius said:I know you're not looking for a new career, but this is probably still the best way to let them know that you're interested in helping:
https://visionaryrealms.com/company/career/
Hi Ranarius.
I had no idea they are still looking for new devs. I was already thinking about looking a new job, because I ended up working mostly in 2d design (for webs, commercials, logos etc), but my passion has been always related to videogames art. I'll check the link for sure. Thank you!
Gaku said:
The simple fact dean went off on a rant at the last part of the video about attracting new players, and a higher player base, tells me all i need to know....They're going to cater to a casual gamer market, this isnt the next EQ we all envisioned.
This is precisely what I am worried about.
The new look is so..."cartoony". I have an extremely hard time with immersion in games that are overly cartoony. I couldnt be more dissapointed in this change. I know they have to do whatever they have to do for their project and that decision is for them to make but man, this one hurts. Not sure I'll even participate in the alpha I paid for at this point. Hopefully they can do something with it to make it not look like a game for 5 year olds.
Very depressing.
Hopefully they put out another video this week. Showing that 5 minute video was bound to cause issues with the community, they must have known that.
Perhaps a nice long 1 hour proper art style reveal, of different color palettes, different races, different activities - fighting, exploring, climbing, mining, etc would set some peoples minds at ease.
lotuss79 said:The issue with Embers Adrift seems to be the gameplay and not the graphical style.
My point was about technical competence.And thank you Renarious for pointing that out.I can tell you that the number of people playing in pre-alpha and greatly enjoying the game (up until now) greatly exceeds 25.And thats the real question isn't it.Was Pantheon supposed to be a game for a couple thousand players who want a grown up mmo, or was it supposed to cater to the widest mass market demographic possible?I can promise you that i want the game to succeed. And that simply will not happen if they try to be a mass appeal mmo. Too many of them already exist. They Need to be a niche game for a dedicated fan base.
I personally dont have a problem with graphical style either way. My issue is yes Embers does have a graphics problem, as there are many people that complain about the darkness, the lag, optimization, and wont play on many low end machines. Additionally its very boring because because they cannot add epic looking animations probably due to how taxing the graphics is on the system. So if there was a lot more leeway they could make colorful weapons and armor, and make it overall more appealing.
I get there is this crowd of players that follows games around that gets into early testing and spins BS to the devs of these games to push unpopular systems. Seen too much of it over the years. Devs are in a bubble and listen to these people. You say you dont care if this game is popular, and you want them to limit the game to some small niche group. So you are obviously capping the potential base right there.
Embers did that, and look where they ended up. If Embers is what you want, why not play that? I am sure it has all the niche graphics and mechanics you are advocating for in this game. Oh thats right, the people who say they want something dont actually play the games that are built like what they "say they want".
Everyone knows, if they built an EQ/WoW Vanilla mix that was extremely popular, then you and everyone else in this forum would play it. These graphics issues would be moot, because the game would be all the rage.
The games you are talking about that "appeal to mass players", which games are those exactly, because I havent seen any MMO's release in 10 years retain very much of their playbase at all. WoW, FFXIV and ESO are about all that have. Even Wow with its EZ mode gameplay is a shadow of its former self. You cant really say the new games appeal to all the players if nobody actually plays them.
Razorbrains said:lotuss79 said:The issue with Embers Adrift seems to be the gameplay and not the graphical style.
My point was about technical competence.And thank you Renarious for pointing that out.I can tell you that the number of people playing in pre-alpha and greatly enjoying the game (up until now) greatly exceeds 25.And thats the real question isn't it.Was Pantheon supposed to be a game for a couple thousand players who want a grown up mmo, or was it supposed to cater to the widest mass market demographic possible?I can promise you that i want the game to succeed. And that simply will not happen if they try to be a mass appeal mmo. Too many of them already exist. They Need to be a niche game for a dedicated fan base.I personally dont have a problem with graphical style either way. My issue is yes Embers does have a graphics problem, as there are many people that complain about the darkness, the lag, optimization, and wont play on many low end machines. Additionally its very boring because because they cannot add epic looking animations probably due to how taxing the graphics is on the system. So if there was a lot more leeway they could make colorful weapons and armor, and make it overall more appealing.
I get there is this crowd of players that follows games around that gets into early testing and spins BS to the devs of these games to push unpopular systems. Seen too much of it over the years. Devs are in a bubble and listen to these people. You say you dont care if this game is popular, and you want them to limit the game to some small niche group. So you are obviously capping the potential base right there.
Embers did that, and look where they ended up. If Embers is what you want, why not play that? I am sure it has all the niche graphics and mechanics you are advocating for in this game. Oh thats right, the people who say they want something dont actually play the games that are built like what they "say they want".
Everyone knows, if they built an EQ/WoW Vanilla mix that was extremely popular, then you and everyone else in this forum would play it. These graphics issues would be moot, because the game would be all the rage.
The games you are talking about that "appeal to mass players", which games are those exactly, because I havent seen any MMO's release in 10 years retain very much of their playbase at all. WoW, FFXIV and ESO are about all that have. Even Wow with its EZ mode gameplay is a shadow of its former self. You cant really say the new games appeal to all the players if nobody actually plays them.
Don't tell me what game to go play or not and what to comment on or not.
I could just as easily tell you to go play Fortnight and don't comment on this game anymore. That would be ridiculous.
The notion that the people who pony up for pre-alpha access aren't serious about actually playing the game and are trying to lead VR down the wrong path before we bail is absurd too.
I know its fashionable now for people to say "VR never promised you anything!", but thats simply not the case.
This change in art direction is a fundamental betrayal of the game they said they were making.
Consider a handcore, slow combat game that required patience to play. Now change its graphics to appeal to a "wider audience".
The players that you attract with these new graphics are going to hate that pace of game play.
So take a guess whats going to change next.
...Now change its graphics to appeal to a "wider audience".The players that you attract with these new graphics are going to hate that pace of game play.
So take a guess whats going to change next.
I get that it's scary to think about that, but the fact that they finally chose their art style is no reason to assume they are going to change the tenets of their game. So far so good, I'll continue to believe they are in tact until something actually changes.
Ranarius said:...Now change its graphics to appeal to a "wider audience".The players that you attract with these new graphics are going to hate that pace of game play.
So take a guess whats going to change next.
I get that it's scary to think about that, but the fact that they finally chose their art style is no reason to assume they are going to change the tenets of their game. So far so good, I'll continue to believe they are in tact until something actually changes.
Unfortunatly i don't think its as simple as finally choosing an art style though.
They had an art style. One that they sold the game to us on.
And the new one just looks sooo bad. Like an amature effort.
And the reasons given for it were quite literally "its the easier for us and a wider demo will like it".
They should never have said the quiet part out loud.
Now its impossible for them to say its not a betrayal of the original vision.
lotuss79 said:For your first point, yes.
After 10 years of development, for this to be what they have to show for it. We are totally justified in being critical of their work.
This is exactly the point. Early supporters pledged (perhaps naively), up to or around $1,000 to support the vision of a slower paced, return to MMO with substance where choices had meaning and consequences. Now after 10 years, quite sadly I will say, there really is not much to show for all their efforts. The new art style looks strikes me as something that would be played by children on their phone or tablet and truly does not represent the vision that was sold to us.
Prindan said: I know some of you are very disappointed by the new art style and I can understand that, but I just wanted to say I think it was one of the smartest things the team could have done. I played EQ 1 from Day 1 and I pledged for Pantheon back during the failed Kickstarter days. I am old-school but I think the new style makes a ton of sense and will actually help the game get shipped, reduce content timelines, provide lasting appeal, and grow the audience for funding. The important piece will be keeping the fundamentals of the game like, tons of “named” mobs, large dungeons that aren’t instanced, big and varied loot tables, distinct classes, and great community. I suggest giving the new style a chance. The animations are already looking way more fluid. Keep up the good work VR!
Just have to say the animations stood out to me almost as much as the bland lack of texture on the graphics themselves.
Gotta dissagree. The running animation that they showed off looks very choppy and unnatural. (wolves moving around looked fluid, but still the art style is whats typically seen in content geared towards 1-5 year olds, not even the teenage gamers they want to target now)
lotuss79 said:Just have to say the animations stood out to me almost as much as the bland lack of texture on the graphics themselves.
Gotta dissagree. The running animation that they showed off looks very choppy and unnatural. (wolves moving around looked fluid, but still the art style is whats typically seen in content geared towards 1-5 year olds, not even the teenage gamers they want to target now)
The wolf animations are from the Unity asset store from someone who did all the placeholder animals they were using in prior videos. It makes sense for them to just reskin the original rigs, but something like the griffon or humans are probably better representations of the quality we can expect for anything in-house.