After watching Blizzcon and seeing the Diablo: Immortal reveal, I now realize that my greatest fear for the Blizzard games I love has come to life; that Blizzard has completely lost touch with its original PC player base that made them what they are today. WoW players feel that they are next, especially hearing that Blizzard is pushing for the mobile platform across all of their IPs. Now, I understand this may not usher in the end of Blizzard PC games, but it most certainly explains why BfA feels and plays like an empty shell of its predecessor expansion/has virtually zero old RP elements we used to enjoy.
We all knew it was coming. With great success comes money, money brings outside investors, outside investors bring unwanted changes to games we've fallen in love with and then they take advantage of that emotion. It's like a RL sith code. As a 26 y.o. vanilla to modern WoW player, it has taken me far too long to realize that the amazing game I grew up with as a kid is long dead along with my beloved first MMO: EQ2, but that is a different story (Don't even mention EQ Next).
Now, what does this have to do with Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen? It's simple, PC players need a new home.
IMO, you are the last bastion of hope for the MMO genre. The community is counting on you to deliver the immersive roleplaying experience we all want and deserve. Please stay true to your original mission and keep busting your asses because I fear the future for our greatest passion and hobby is at stake if you can not produce the product you promised. I'm not trying to be negative, just realistic. Everyone is cheering for you VR, from your current pledges to MMOers whom have not even heard the Pantheon name yet; we are cheering for you.
Save us from P2W/Psychologically manipulative games! Keep working hard and develop the kick-ass game we know you can so we can all go home!
V/r,
Can
Great news! We will be announcing our switch to the mobile soon Umm, we won't change anything, I promise! PC for life :D
In all seriousness, we have no intentions to veer away from our internal roadmap/plan for Pantheon, PC will be first and foremost, we may contemplate an app for Pantheon later down the track but it will not take away from the PC game, if anything, we will only want to add to the experience and enhance it but you have nothing to worry about, mate.
This is both funny and sad.
Blizzard was a great back then... I think everyone here may have.played D1, SC, or even Warcraft. Blizzard sold their souls years ago, and it has happen to a lot of the companies. The common factor is outside investments and money. Sometimes it's a slow decay, but it will happen with enough time. The game turns from its clients to its investors. There are still good development companies out there but they all have the same thing. A small devoted team that is just trying to make a good game. Not someone looking at market value. Larian Studio, Obsidian, VR...these groups listen to the fans, interact, have open forums for years before releasing a game to the fans. They deal with our complaints, our bitching, and our praises. I really do feel we have a great thing coming here for us, will it be perfect? I doubt it, but nothing is and we can see the effort these guys are putting into this game.
BTW VR, no pressure here. You are our last hope. Haha
I don't really think there is a lot of pressure on VR any longer. Blizzard has screwed up with how they are doing the "not really Classic WoW" launch and Warcraft has been dying the slow EQ style death for years as they've gotten away from what made the game great.
The current crop off MMOs in development are all too PvP based. Crowfall, Camelot Unchained, and even Ashes of Creation.
Project Gorgon just doesn't have the graphics, Saga of Lucimia doesn't have the investment.
Chronicles of Elyria is a skill based game that kills off your character over time. Bravo for new concepts, but that's not going to appeal to EQ1 and Classic WoW players that just want to compete to make their hero as powerful as they possibly can.
Unless Daybreak is working on EQ3 in secret and actually makes it correctly, I don't see any competition in sight for this type of game.
Blizzard went downhill many years ago. Several key devs left the team the past several years and it shows in their games. The Diablo Immortal debacle will be legendary in gaming history, it is a turning point where people finally realized Blizzard is not the company it once was. WoW "Classic" is gonna have sharding supposedly which kills the point of the project entirely. I was hoping WoW Classic wouldn't be a complete debacle but it isn't looking good, so yeah it's all on VR now (no pressure!).
Just to play a little bit of Devils advocate for Blizzard. The problem with Diablo Immortal was not that it was a mobile game. It's actually just fine that they decided to make a mobile diablo game. The real problem with the situation was that they chose to announce this game at the convention filled with PC gamers, while at the same time choosing to NOT announce any information about any other diablo related games for the PC.
If they had also announced the rumoured Diablo 4 for PC even in just a little 'teaser' video (maybe just showing a fancy new Diablo Logo) and then said "We don't have enough to show you anything yet, but it's coming" I think people would have been adequetly excited and the mobile game would have been either ignored or embraced as something to fill the time until the true PC Diablo game arrives.
Boogie2988 also made a comment, if they had announced Diablo Immortal at an Eastern (Asian) gaming conference that usually have a large 'mobile' gamers crowd, this might have gone completely different as well.
Of course we will have to wait and see if the Mobile game is actually any good, but it's not a crazy idea for them to make a mobile game. They just needed to remember that the crowd they were in front of was PC gamers, not mobile gamers. Not that PC gamers can't play mobile games too... but you should know what I mean.
As for WoW dying, etc... I think people need to remember that WoW today still has way more subscribers than EQ1 or EQ2 did at their very Peak. Even though WoW may have maybe half the numbers they had at their Peak it's still dwarfs EQ1's population.
Many of the people here on the Pantheon forums seem to have lost interest in games like WoW, which is totally fine, but don't realize that not everyone else has lost interest too. It's very common for us to assume that we are 'part of the majority'. Many people just assume without any evidence that 'Most people think like me!'. For those who don't hang out on the unofficial Pantheon Discord server, you wouldn't notice how many of the people in there still show as 'Playing World of Warcraft' very regularly. Even though they are still excited enough about Pantheon to be actively involved and on the Discord server. You don't have to hate Blizzard and WoW just because you love VR and Pantheon.
While I won't try to argue that you should like Blizzard games, I will remind you that many people still do, and Blizzard is not going to die out just because they screwed up an announcement for their Mobile Diablo game. Projections still suggest that this Diablo Immortal will make them tons of money when it launches, and their stock will recover.
I myself am not currently playing WoW or Diablo anymore (been 4 years). So don't assume I'm just a fanboi who just loves Blizzard.
Although I just started trying Destiny 2 (Activition game) now that it's free (act fast), so if any of you would like to come play that with me let me know.
Off topic : an easy guess would be that since activision bought king.com, they now have enough experienced mobile milking game developpers to use for a franchise portability.
Still, blizzard will not fall neither will activision, but they are both far away from the time they were passionate to make great games that would sell because of that, but good to average games that sells out of boredom.
Anyone remembers the lost vikings, or even for activision : interstate 76 ?
The gaming community expanded, and is far bigger than it was during eq's peak, a lot of people now play games because other do, like sports were vastly popular due to social and educationnal behaviours. Comparing wow to eq in the playerbase is like comparing eq to atari old games. Not the same public anymore.
Nothing wrong with the "greed" . Those are companies and companies went on record already some centuries ago by saying that for every investment there must be profit which pays the investment back .
By comparison charities typically don't care for profit . So as long as charities don't start to develop games , it is normal that all dveloppers (VR included) care for profit because otherwise they have to shut the activity down .
Deadshade said:Nothing wrong with the "greed" . Those are companies and companies went on record already some centuries ago by saying that for every investment there must be profit which pays the investment back .
By comparison charities typically don't care for profit . So as long as charities don't start to develop games , it is normal that all dveloppers (VR included) care for profit because otherwise they have to shut the activity down .
There is something wrong with greed... Its the fact that good decision making on games goes out the window for them to make a fast buck... and we as there customers get left with $hit for games and do not get ininnovation... We get wow clones that ultimately fail... They might make a quick buck but then what... by then people figure the game is trash and then stop playing.
Profit is not the issue... it is when your investors want a return... they want it now and then you cut corners to meet a deadline...Of course VR needs money to keep going and I wish them all the best in making money and having a good company that cares about thier players...big difference in what you are saying
I think Brad is genuinely a good guy and really cares about what he is doing... That is why I helped fund the game and he really seems to be getting good people around... I think if you look back on Saga of heroes he had the same problem I speak of with investors and they wanted it out now and they had to make decisions on how to get the game out as fast as the investors wanted and then you ended up with that... I actually liked the game but it kind of died out if you ask me... I believe this time will be different and he is keeping more control over Pantheon like he should... These guys pour there heart and soul into thier games and deserve to be rewarded with money to support the company and their families.
This post resonated with me. I think you are right. Something is seriously wrong with the gaming industry at a spiritual level. It's going to require nothing short of a holy war to vanquish our foes. I will not rest until Pantheon is firmly on top of the MMORPG genre. I'm doing my part. How about you guys?