Hi guys. I've been talking with some friends I know from other MMO's about Pantheon, trying to spread the word a little and got some interesting and varied responses on what their predicitions for the game were and if it has a future. We have all seen games on kickstarter rise in popularity and hype (the MMO reaper) and then the end product is unsatisfactory, overpromised and not what we expected. Now, dont get me wrong I dont want to praise something we have seen so little of before its in a state to test for ourselves, but from what I've seen of the game so far, it looks very much like whats said on the tin, so to speak. The progress the dev team has made in the past year is amazing and its so great to see a respectful and intelligent community getting involved with the project and supporting its development. SO my questions to you all are:
What are your thoughts on people disregarding a product due to evidence of other similar projects failing in the past?
and...
What have you seen thats groundbreaking in the MMO genre that are you most excited about within the world of Terminus?
and...
Any general thoughts on the topics I spoke about in this post.
Looking forward to hear your responses :)
It's human nature to be cautious. And the rumors about Vanguard failing will make some people pause before donating or getting behind a game like pantheon MMO. I was lurking on Fires of Heaven site just the other day reading about this game, the majoirty there bashing it harshly. Claiming Brad was a drug addict who was rarely in the office. Lead dev Jeff Bulter was too busy focusing on his affair to get Vanguard done, sex at the office etc. One guy over there even claims Cohh, the streamer, is bashing pantheon as a big empty, no content game when he is playing other games. It's hard to know what exactly caused Vanguards demise and I respect Brad's answer he has given. I think he has learned from it. I have been impressed with this game and EQ 1 is my all time favorite game. I want that group based game back.
For me, I want a hard game. I recently tried EQ 2....and level after level I was SOLOING, yes soloing, 5 or more mobs at a time. What a joke...I uninstalled that game fast. I want a challenge again...I want death to hurt, to make risk vs reward a thing agian. I want a group based game with a little solo here and there if you dont have much time or have trouble getting a group. Perception and the climate being something to overcome are features I look forward to. As well as more challenging quests like epics etc. For me, less hand holding please.
bryanleo9 said:For me, I want a hard game. I recently tried EQ 2....and level after level I was SOLOING, yes soloing, 5 or more mobs at a time. What a joke...I uninstalled that game fast. I want a challenge again...I want death to hurt, to make risk vs reward a thing agian. I want a group based game with a little solo here and there if you dont have much time or have trouble getting a group. Perception and the climate being something to overcome are features I look forward to. As well as more challenging quests like epics etc. For me, less hand holding please.
I agree with all of that. Challenging games are always the most rewarding to play, but a decent skill cap is another thing that needs to be implemented instead of just remembering a rotation and fitting it around the combat situation. Independent roles for the classes and variety of choice with making your character excel at certains tasks should be something that, if done right, would be a noticable improvement on a lot of current MMOs out there.
Ultimately, it's the individual's choice whether or not to act on faith. And you can't really force them to feel one way or the other. If people miss out on good things because they're too afraid to get burned again, then that's their own fault. Judging something based on past experiences of something similar, yet totally different is terrible practice imo, but unfortunately people do it all the time. As you said, you just have to take things on face value for what it is and only hold VR to what they themselves have said in regards to Pantheon. Other games are 100% irrelevant. Making judgments about Pantheon (or anything) without doing sufficient research on it is nothing short of laziness.
I suggest you read this blog by Aradune: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/blogs/151/178/how-to-get-through-to-people-who-just-don-t-get-it
And as far as what makes Pantheon different, well, it's spelled out right here: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/pantheon_difference/
opalrebel said:Hi guys. I've been talking with some friends I know from other MMO's about Pantheon, trying to spread the word a little and got some interesting and varied responses on what their predicitions for the game were and if it has a future. We have all seen games on kickstarter rise in popularity and hype (the MMO reaper) and then the end product is unsatisfactory, overpromised and not what we expected. Now, dont get me wrong I dont want to praise something we have seen so little of before its in a state to test for ourselves, but from what I've seen of the game so far, it looks very much like whats said on the tin, so to speak. The progress the dev team has made in the past year is amazing and its so great to see a respectful and intelligent community getting involved with the project and supporting its development. SO my questions to you all are:
What are your thoughts on people disregarding a product due to evidence of other similar projects failing in the past?
People are jaded. Stay the course!
edit: cause... course... same crap... haters
opalrebel said: ...What are your thoughts on people disregarding a product due to evidence of other similar projects failing in the past?
and...
What have you seen thats groundbreaking in the MMO genre that are you most excited about within the world of Terminus?
and...
Any general thoughts on the topics I spoke about in this post.
Looking forward to hear your responses :)
1) some people are optimistic, some are realistic, some are pessimistic. These days? You can get 1000 people to believe -anything-, so .. I remain skeptical in peoples opinions when faced with facts and logic.
2) I have seen nothing groundbreaking yet either in design or implementation, nor do I expect to see anything groundbreaking in this game.
In general? I have spent exactly as much as I would throw away into the wind on any faith based prospect, on Pantheon. Without evidence, it is foolish to expect any outcome other than failure.
Personally, I am disappointed that another opportunity for innovative, fun, detailed, in-depth, deep, focused, customized, unique, personalized and challenging gameplay will be passed over in favor of traditional, conservative, and historically demonstrated failure mechanics. But, it's not my money, and it's not my intellectual property, so as a potential customer, all I can do is wait until launch day. After seeing PFO and Shroud both fail, and seeing DR in GW2, and role dilution in Rift, and every other NA Fantasy MMO embrace " you can solo-to-max-level in under a week? " I am about at my wits end for the genre. I don't think I have the will left in me to wait out another 5 year design-implement-fail cycle. I'll just go back to reading books. (edit: spelling. why don't these forums have spellcheck after 3+ years? bleh)
bryanleo9 said:One guy over there even claims Cohh, the streamer, is bashing pantheon as a big empty, no content game when he is playing other games.
I could see that being interpreted out of context, replace "bashing" with "stating" and insert " yet, 'cos its pre-alpha" after game. I did think Cohh's reaction was sincere on the "building a city" twitch. He seemed to like the dynamic shadowing on the unfinished grey-boxed pieces.
Manouk said:bryanleo9 said:One guy over there even claims Cohh, the streamer, is bashing pantheon as a big empty, no content game when he is playing other games.
I could see that being interpreted out of context, replace "bashing" with "stating" and insert " yet, 'cos its pre-alpha" after game. I did think Cohh's reaction was sincere on the "building a city" twitch. He seemed to like the dynamic shadowing on the unfinished grey-boxed pieces.
Do we know what Cohh actually said? To me he seemed genuinely excited during all of the streams he participated in.
I personally hope that the game developers stay the course. We have seen others come and attempt to hold fast, yet get pushed away by the tide of consumer complaints (I am looking at you Wildstar).
Overall, the game is trying to get back to our roots and I hope that it stays that way. The problem with the big budget games is that they require a massive budget to stay afloat after release. If VR has planned properly with it's smaller than groundbreaking population, and is prepared to weather the storm of the 3 monther crowd then it should work. If they get greedy as seems to happen with everyone else then it will go the way of the WoW clone and die.
There's a certain brand of gamer that thinks his predictions and opinions carry more weight and even gain him respect if complex enough and sufficiently negative
In truth, until the game is launched and running for about a year, nobody knows what's going to happen, and whatever anyone says really doesn't matter at all... Once its been out for a year, if its great, all those prognosticators will be happily playing it and hoping nobody remembers what they said before
For anyone that wants to bash a game before its even an actual game, based on things that have happened in the past with other games (or even other games by the same people) I wonder where the games they have built are, so we could all play them and see what a really good and successful game looks like
As far as people making up stories about the individuals involved, well just as with anything else, with no source its clearly a lie and shouldn't be credited, much less mentioned elsewhere
The thing that invariably kills the games we have loved is corporate interference, not the creative folks behind it, and that's not something it sounds like Pantheon is having to deal with yet, so lets just try to help VR make a great, profitable game that is capable of proving to the people that keep buying up and ruining our favorite games that there is another way to make money
People are much quicker to complain, whine and/or see the negative side of things and speak up, long before they will compliment, praise and be optimistic.
My grandfather used to say "The line at the complaint counter is always longer than the number of compliment cards in the box."
Just look at the world around us, look at social media. One would think the world is an evil, horrible place, and no one is happy, if they just took a quick look around.
Sadly, as gaming has become a profittable medium, corporate interests took over where creative interests and passion once ruled. This led to a dilluted marketplace of mediocrity and poor products for the sake of cranking up the money train. Would we have the Sistine Chapel if they told Michelangelo he had just 1 year to finish.
Fulton said:People are much quicker to complain, whine and/or see the negative side of things and speak up, long before they will compliment, praise and be optimistic.While this is generally true, my attitude toward postively or negatively expressing constructive crticism has been forcibly changed over the years by one simple fact: The only issues that get addressed, post-launch, are the ones that are complained about the loudest and most negatively.
So, from the perspective of a customer, if developers actually fixed the bugs that were submitted quietly in the bug database, with the same prioritization as those that 100 angry customers are threadlocking the forums about, hourly, then sure, I would be happy to simply submit new bugs into the bug database. But as that is unlikely to be the case for the forseeable future, the squeaky wheel will continue to get the grease.
As a developer myself, I want to see postiive feedback, but I don't NEED to see positive feedback. I NEED to see negative feedback. That's the feedback that helps me fix the bugs. With respect to Pantheon, how it looks? I don't care. I'm sure there are designers, artists, and paid QA testers that care how the game looks. I am rarely/never going to offer positive feedback about how it looks, because to me, that's not what matters. What matters to me is, are the nuts-and-bolts of combat are working as intended? Is role dilution occurring? And can I prove it all from the data in the client side logfile? Great, I will offer some feedback on that, because it's not as subjective. It's evidence-based and more objective than "I don't like the art style, because I prefer cell-shaded". Yes, that feedback has value, but being entirely subjective is not a bug that can be fixed by adjusting a value in a table or spreadsheet.
People will always be cautious and gamers seem especially embittered in recent years due to kickstarter fails/scams and the rise of early access games & day one paid DLC. I generally don't try to change the minds of those people, give them the overview and let them wait until release to see for themselves how things turned up.
As for anything groundbreaking in the MMO genre? I don't think I have seen anything in Pantheon that aims to break the ground or be entirely new, but we are still in the dark about a lot of things. I guess it depends on how Progeny, Colored Mana, the final Climate system, and (if it's still in the game) Rites of Passage end up.
bryanleo9 said:One guy over there even claims Cohh, the streamer, is bashing pantheon as a big empty, no content game when he is playing other games.
It probably is.
It's in pre-alpha status. Why would it be chock full of content when the core structure is still in need of heavy work?
Ashvaild said: Anybody have links to where Cohh said such things? He seems genuine and pretty honest. I've seen him straight up say when he doesn't like a game, even if it's not a popular opinion (Zelda)
I'd be willing to bet a large sum that there's no links because he never actually said anything like that. That would be ridiculous. VR doesn't pay him to do those streams. He asked to do them and continues to do them because he's legitimately excited about Pantheon. Of course they were happy to work with him, but it's not an officially sponsored affair.
IF they paid him, it might be a little easier to imagine that his reactions were a little more exaggerated. Although I still think he's smarter than seriously downplaying Pantheon publically, because he has more than enough viewers for any negative feedback to eventually make it's way back to VR, in which case he'd probably lose the sponsorship.
But again, considering that's not actually the case as he practically just donates his time to do Pantheon streams because he enjoys it, there's a precisely 0% chance he's turning around and backstabbing Pantheon while playing other games. Somebody just probably heard him say something about how there's not a lot of content in Pantheon yet because it's still in development, and somebody twisted that to make it sound like whatever they want it to sound like to make themselves feel better.
opalrebel said:What have you seen thats groundbreaking in the MMO genre that are you most excited about within the world of Terminus?
I'm not looking for anything flashy or groundbreaking in Pantheon. I just want something that is well made and within the same zipcode as EQ or Vanguard; the only two MMO's I've ever put time into. So for me what I find most exciting is Brad McQuaid. I'm not expecting him to lay a golden egg but judging from the past I think it's going to be good. I wouldn't be here or pledging if he wasn't heading this up.
As far as other people complaining about an unfinished pre-alpha game, it doesn't bother me. Only a fool would complain about a half done project. Put a bunch of fools together and you get gossip. I've watch Cohh enough to know he wouldn't put VR in a negative light before Pantheon is even finished. That's absurd.
So... I went to twitchcon. Several other fans and I were there and played this game in different zones. I can tell you that whomever is pretending to say that's what cohh is probably just spewing garbage. Besides. Who the hell cares about what someone in some wanna be guild that plays on agnar says anyway? :)
Bazgrim said:Ashvaild said: Anybody have links to where Cohh said such things? He seems genuine and pretty honest. I've seen him straight up say when he doesn't like a game, even if it's not a popular opinion (Zelda)I'd be willing to bet a large sum that there's no links because he never actually said anything like that. That would be ridiculous. VR doesn't pay him to do those streams. He asked to do them and continues to do them because he's legitimately excited about Pantheon. Of course they were happy to work with him, but it's not an officially sponsored affair.
IF they paid him, it might be a little easier to imagine that his reactions were a little more exaggerated. Although I still think he's smarter than seriously downplaying Pantheon publically, because he has more than enough viewers for any negative feedback to eventually make it's way back to VR, in which case he'd probably lose the sponsorship.
But again, considering that's not actually the case as he practically just donates his time to do Pantheon streams because he enjoys it, there's a precisely 0% chance he's turning around and backstabbing Pantheon while playing other games. Somebody just probably heard him say something about how there's not a lot of content in Pantheon yet because it's still in development, and somebody twisted that to make it sound like whatever they want it to sound like to make themselves feel better.
Woot!
The claim about Cohh is absolute rubbish, I can tell you that first hand. Cohh is not paid by us and off camera is genuinely excited for the game and what our plans are for it, he was impressed with how far we had come with such a small and passionate team and was very candid in giving feedback, which we appreciated. We enjoy working with Cohh but outside of the streams/videos he does not have "hands-on access", this person is just fabricating lies, most likely for attention because they are not in the Pre-Alpha and have no idea how far along we are or how good the game is.
This thread is done, folks, please refrain from making threads like this in future, there is ample information, blogs and dev advice on how to address such issues but when it comes down to it, some people will judge based on a very basic first impression without actually understanding how game development works or hold past experiences against people and never let them live it down.
Either way, I wouldn't bother wasting too much energy on people like that as nine times out of ten they have already made their mind up and are probably not someone we want in our community anyway if they need that much convincing!
On a side note, posting anything from external sites, especially ones known for their trolling will be removed immediately, if you want to use external quotes please make sure they are credible.