you should check out the discord, lots of interesting stuff. Definetly doesn't sound like a new side game that is completely standalone.
Nexira said:you should check out the discord, lots of interesting stuff. Definetly doesn't sound like a new side game that is completely standalone.
No it doesn't sound like "just a sidegame" at all, especially since the art was coincidenent changed in a direction that accomodates casual battle royale/moba players. More disturbing still, apparently they had a deep discussion and came to a consensus on this decision. If there's really that many clueless staff and backers, it would explain alot of the Pantheon woes over the years.
Sounds like the battle for southshore instance to me.
If you played wow at that time, it took lowbie questing zone hillsbrad and turned it into an instance with the goal of killing each other until the counter ran out. (a different ruleset than the normal server)
They are having you queue at a portal to go to an instance of thronefast that has the hardcore ruleset turned on. There is a pve version and a pvp version depending on what you like to do. You finish a mission which they have not expanded upon, and i guess if you survive you keep whatever you loot. Dunno if the loot from the hardcore mode will crossover to normal mode of the game, but since they are just using the zones they are wanting to test it gives them useful data for development. (dunno what that data is tbh, not a developer). They will be adding more zones as they go to focus test each area including the goblin caves and stuff.
Of all the things everyone is angry about, I would think queuing, porting, and instances would be the problem, not the fact that they are adding instanced pvp. I personally don't care if they add pvp, even EQ had pvp....just not instanced. When I played wow I really hated arenas, that doesn't mean I wanted arenas to not exist...just that I won't play that portion of the game.
They haven't even decided how or if they even will monetize it yet....at least from the last time I was on discord yesterday. It is not as bad as it sounded at first, but really they should have shared everything that was talked about in Discord yesterday and more when this first came out b/c we have all got in our head the worse case scenario and the reality is a lot less doom and gloom.
dorotea said:Why even *have* forums if all the information is released on discord and none of it released here?
If there was going to be no information until the newsletter - OK - bad decision maybe but I can wait.
But it seems there is information - just none of it here.
That has been an ongoing argument with VR since the earliest days. The website and forums should represent a one-stop-shop for all things Pantheon. Instead, VR prefers their potential playerbase to search across multiple sources in a vain attempt to learn all you can about Pantheon and, too often it must be said, the information is contradicting. GG VR.
I certainly agree with both dorotea and Vandraad that both general and critical information should be centrally located.
dorotea said:Why even *have* forums if all the information is released on discord and none of it released here?
If there was going to be no information until the newsletter - OK - bad decision maybe but I can wait.
But it seems there is information - just none of it here.
IMO:
Because Discord is ephemeral. It can and does change at any time. You can go (at any time) and delete or edit anything you want.
There's no public record; there's no archive.org or google bots scraping your content to provide an immutable or historical record of changes or deltas in information.
They do. not. want. an immutable record. It would mean they would be required to meet their public goals. Or at the very least, people could point to the past statements and ask questions about them.
It's the same reason some/many/most shady developers love Discord. They can change anything they want at any time, and there is no public record.
Why doesn't Visionary Realms use reddit, officially? Because people scrape every single post in real time and they use them to ask very pointed questions, in the future.
It's also why many teams moved to videos instead of web sites with written information you can just read, like an average human.
It makes finding any/the/some information more difficult. Not impossible, obviously, you can parse transcription records, but it's additional steps no one wants to take versus just reading a freaking web page.
And, apparently, updating a web site is hard, like it's 1995 again. This team has been unable to keep a single web site up to date in 9.5 years. I have zero confidence that will change.
Given their current shift in focus, I have every confidence these forums will either be closed, negatively changed, or continue to not be used as the resource they could be. They'll just be seen as a time sink with no ROI. Which they are, when you have no integrity. :)
vjek said:Given their current shift in focus, I have every confidence these forums will either be closed, negatively changed, or continue to not be used as the resource they could be. They'll just be seen as a time sink with no ROI. Which they are, when you have no integrity. :)
I'm leaning towards comment deletion. They already edit comments they don't like, removal will be what happens when too many people dissent.
vjek said:IMO:
Because Discord is ephemeral. It can and does change at any time. You can go (at any time) and delete or edit anything you want.
There's no public record; there's no archive.org or google bots scraping your content to provide an immutable or historical record of changes or deltas in information.They do. not. want. an immutable record. It would mean they would be required to meet their public goals. Or at the very least, people could point to the past statements and ask questions about them.
It's the same reason some/many/most shady developers love Discord. They can change anything they want at any time, and there is no public record.
Why doesn't Visionary Realms use reddit, officially? Because people scrape every single post in real time and they use them to ask very pointed questions, in the future.
It's also why many teams moved to videos instead of web sites with written information you can just read, like an average human.
It makes finding any/the/some information more difficult. Not impossible, obviously, you can parse transcription records, but it's additional steps no one wants to take versus just reading a freaking web page.And, apparently, updating a web site is hard, like it's 1995 again. This team has been unable to keep a single web site up to date in 9.5 years. I have zero confidence that will change.
Given their current shift in focus, I have every confidence these forums will either be closed, negatively changed, or continue to not be used as the resource they could be. They'll just be seen as a time sink with no ROI. Which they are, when you have no integrity. :)
Also, VR (and Joppa specifically) never gives specific, definitive answers because he does not want anybody to come back later on and throw his own quotes back in his face with a 'but you said X on this date". With sufficiently vague statements VR can use a lot of words but say very little that cannot be lock VR into some commitment. Many of their messages are filled with 'soon' and 'hopefully' and 'we wish' and 'we're working towards' and never 'we will'. Its a CYA response.
\tangent:
Nexira - "Sounds like the battle for southshore instance to me.
If you played wow at that time, it took lowbie questing zone hillsbrad and turned it into an instance with the goal of killing each other until the counter ran out. (a different ruleset than the normal server)"
huh, when did they do that? During vanilla, it was just the open-world zone. I would tame an Alterac Valley wolf that was crazy fast and use eyes of the beast to disrupt their FP gryphons.
Thunderleg said:During vanilla, it was just the open-world zone. I would tame an Alterac Valley wolf that was crazy fast and use eyes of the beast to disrupt their FP gryphons.
Wrath of the Lich King expansion, it was a portal in Caverns of Time along with the Opening of the Dark Portal et al. Basically went through and affected the course of major historical events that the Black Dragonflight were attempting to alter.
"Given their current shift in focus, I have every confidence these forums will either be closed, negatively changed, or continue to not be used as the resource they could be. They'll just be seen as a time sink with no ROI. Which they are, when you have no integrity. :)"
I choose not to comment on their integrity. A few weeks ago I would have defended them. In a few weeks ....who knows. At the moment simply no comment. As for the rest of what you say - I would not be remotely surprised if they shut down the forums outright, touting how much better Discord is and what an improvement they were making. In fact, they will doubtlessly say that shutting the forums down will significantly reduce the time to release for Pantheon. They might not even *intend* to say that but it is part of so many PR macros of theirs they probably won't even notice.
vjek said:Given their current shift in focus, I have every confidence these forums will either be closed, negatively changed, or continue to not be used as the resource they could be. They'll just be seen as a time sink with no ROI. Which they are, when you have no integrity. :)
These forums are essentially nothing to VR. Their engagements here are rare to non-existent. Weeks can go by without a single post by then and even longer to get even a short response to a hot topic. VR can just continue to ignore the forums. Besides, there are so many different places for communications (discord, facebook, reddit, X, etc) that further dilutes their engagements with the public. Each getting less attention because there are so many to choose from.
dorotea said:Is there anything you can say to the community as a whole - meaning the community that relies on these forums not Reddit or Facebook or Discord for official information about how development and testing are going?
Currently, the test is going well. Having the server up and testers engaging continuously has allowed for a fast turn around on patching. We've made strides on instancing stability, NPCs in the new art have been added, and a lot of new tasks are in game.
We will be addressing the information that was leaked in the upcoming Producer's Letter, but what I can say from my time in-game is that I have enjoyed seeing the progress and the game mode has just added another layer of interest to Pantheon.
thx justdrop
vjek said:dorotea said:Why even *have* forums if all the information is released on discord and none of it released here?
If there was going to be no information until the newsletter - OK - bad decision maybe but I can wait.
But it seems there is information - just none of it here.
IMO:
Because Discord is ephemeral. It can and does change at any time. You can go (at any time) and delete or edit anything you want.
There's no public record; there's no archive.org or google bots scraping your content to provide an immutable or historical record of changes or deltas in information.They do. not. want. an immutable record. It would mean they would be required to meet their public goals. Or at the very least, people could point to the past statements and ask questions about them.
It's the same reason some/many/most shady developers love Discord. They can change anything they want at any time, and there is no public record.
Why doesn't Visionary Realms use reddit, officially? Because people scrape every single post in real time and they use them to ask very pointed questions, in the future.
It's also why many teams moved to videos instead of web sites with written information you can just read, like an average human.
It makes finding any/the/some information more difficult. Not impossible, obviously, you can parse transcription records, but it's additional steps no one wants to take versus just reading a freaking web page.And, apparently, updating a web site is hard, like it's 1995 again. This team has been unable to keep a single web site up to date in 9.5 years. I have zero confidence that will change.
Given their current shift in focus, I have every confidence these forums will either be closed, negatively changed, or continue to not be used as the resource they could be. They'll just be seen as a time sink with no ROI. Which they are, when you have no integrity. :)
Nope, none of this is accurate. Everything we say on Discord is copied/screenshot/repeated/shared. Discord is pretty busy and it can be a handful to keep up there, but it is where the majority of our active users talk, so it is where I spend most of my time. As for Reddit, there is an official Reddit, but it isn't used. The unofficial Reddit community isn't conducive to casual discussion from VR reps, so I limit my presence there to announcements for the most part.
When we share information here, it tends to be official word but it is without a doubt my failing that I haven't been answering questions here as I should have been and I apologize for that.
Thunderleg said:\tangent:
Nexira - "Sounds like the battle for southshore instance to me.
If you played wow at that time, it took lowbie questing zone hillsbrad and turned it into an instance with the goal of killing each other until the counter ran out. (a different ruleset than the normal server)"
huh, when did they do that? During vanilla, it was just the open-world zone. I would tame an Alterac Valley wolf that was crazy fast and use eyes of the beast to disrupt their FP gryphons.
It was an anniversary event.
https://www.wowhead.com/guide/pvp-brawl-southshore-vs-tarren-mill-5149