I'm not a dev, but I can tell you that there's not a simple answer to that question. There's a lot of different things all going on at the same time behind the scenes. I'd say, to some degree, all of the above are happening simultaneously. But they're making good progress on all fronts. If you haven't already, I highly suggest you read the State of the Game posted in February to get a better idea of where things are: http://www.pantheonmmo.com/newsletter/2018_february_state_of_the_game/
Well, one thing you need to understand is this game is still in pre-alpha, so some things aren't even set in stone yet. Realistically they gotta take all the ideas they get, decide which ones will actually help their game out, if they take too many ideas in they will be overworked and unable to push this game out as fast as not taking the ideas, however, I'm sure there are ideas they have found on here worth implementing. That being said they now have to actually create the idea, then test it to make sure it has a place, if it's doable, what kind of bugs it causes/can cause. Coding sucks lol, but some of the best games were not made over night.
So with that being in mind, I'm sure there is lots of work all around that needs to get implemented and tested.
Now another thing to remember, is mechanics is constant. Tweaks and balances always need to be made to mechanics. There is never an end to working on mechanics. Which is why Bazgrim stated, this is not a simple question to answer.
There will probably never be an answer. The sad this is, code always causes bugs, you gotta find the right code that plays well with all the other codes, otherwise bugs will start forming, which in case, all these streams are good tests. Then once it's all said and done, server stability needs to be able to maintain the kind of crowds they are wanting to play this game, which on launch day will be thousands of people in small areas, hardly spread out. It's a long road, and there really is no finish, especially to an MMO.
I know this didn't answer your question, but I do hope it gives a little insight on the process, it's a long process, and we have to be patient with them otherwise they may try to rush, which in terms gives us the same crappy MMO's that have been created lately.
Everquest is proof you don't need amazing graphics to bring the world together, heck, I'm pretty happy with the graphics in their current state lol. I'm into these games for mechanics and the adventure.
Priority one has to be basic mechanics and content and performance (meaning that it actually works with characters there moving around).
If the loading screen crashes half the time, if the world looks terrible, if you cannot get the character creation screen to create some of the races or classes, if 10 players in a zone crashes it, it doesn't *matter* what classes have what abilities, what races can do what or whether anything is balanced.
If all pre-alpha does is to give a stable and playable (most of the time) environment where the alpha testers can play around with things (priority one being any VR requests) that may be quite sufficient.
They better stil lbe implementing game mechanics. :) They haven't demonstrated half of "The Pantheon Difference" features, yet.
Never mind things like Crafting, world-plot mechanics (if any) and any of the hundreds of amazing suggestions from these forums over the past three years.
phamtrinli said:Are you guys at the point, yet, where you are just working on content and regressions? Or are you still figuring out technical problems and implementing game mechanics?
It's pretty clear that they are still working on technical problems and creating game mechanics.
MMO's are not easy to create.
Bazgrim said:I'm not a dev, but I can tell you that there's not a simple answer to that question. There's a lot of different things all going on at the same time behind the scenes. I'd say, to some degree, all of the above are happening simultaneously. But they're making good progress on all fronts. If you haven't already, I highly suggest you read the State of the Game posted in February to get a better idea of where things are: http://www.pantheonmmo.com/newsletter/2018_february_state_of_the_game/
Aha that's where they are posting the State of the Game thread now. Thanks you answered my question Baz. :)