Kittik said:Are the writers on that site completely out of touch with MMORPGs? Not a single one of them even mentioned Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen even though Pantheon has nearly 4x as many votes as the next nearest competitor.
I had the same thought and bothered me enough to keep me thinking. As I keep looking for Pantheon related information and surrounding myself with likeminded thoughts, I have forgotten that Pantheon is a niche game. The fact that I have friends that have played every MMO with me since EQ and they are not at all interested in Pantheon I should not be too surprised.
I would like to think that as Pantheon continues to flesh out its vision this will change. But I guess we all would like to know what is best and that all others should agree with us….
Keno Monster said:I don't get the classis wow hype. There are half a dozen established vanilla EMUs out there.
Because Blizzard shuts them down usually. And it is technically illegal to play these unless the company allows it, which Blizzard has said they don't allow it. So mostly for stability.
Kittik said:Are the writers on that site completely out of touch with MMORPGs? Not a single one of them even mentioned Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen even though Pantheon has nearly 4x as many votes as the next nearest competitor.
There's a fairly obvious reason why it wasn't mentioned. VR has spent almost none of their funding on any advertisement yet. The most they've done is reach out to some low profile streamers to spread the word and that's about it.
Even if the majority of video game industry journalists can't be bought when it comes to giving their verdict (which I know is debatable), the websites and magazines they work for can be influenced with 'exclusive interviews' and such. And as long as VR doesn't invest in building hype that way, the journalists don't get to write articles about Pantheon and it won't be on their radar.
That being said, VR is making the right call here in my opinion. They don't have an enormous budget to work with and the game is still too early in development to be overly concerned with its marketing. The buzz won't start until it's closer to release.
A few months ago I had never heard about Pantheon. Since I left Vanguard almost a decade ago I had not followed the MMORPG scene closely, but one day I suddenly felt that it might be fun to play something like that again. I knew that I wanted something where I could join at launch, so I googled and found... nothing, really. It was only when I visited my old guild's forum that someone pointed me to Pantheon. I pledged after studying pantheonmmo.com for an hour or less.
I'm sure there are thousands of potential Pantheon pledgers out there who have never heard about the project, and that poll is one more entry point to The Light.
I voted as well for PRotF.
It was at 34% of the vote which is WAY ahead of anything else.
Yes its a meaningless fan poll, as in we wont win any awards for first place.
But, as others have mentioned it gives OUR GAME exposure and those who like us,
are looking for "something different", they may come check it out and as Baz said, fall in love.
I really wish we could get a bunch of pledgers to band together and be able to somehow
give more exposure to PRotF and bring in new pledgees and income to VR to hire more hands
to get this ball moving at a faster pace. It has so much to offer and would greatly benefit from
more hirelings to do The Masters bidding... lol.
Just adding this here instead of a new post. MMORPG.com just added their list as well. You'll have to enter Pantheon into the "Other" category and type it in as it's not currently one of the default selectable on the list. Probably because it likely won't be out this year and it's won the last 2 years,. So...why break the streak? ;p
https://www.mmorpg.com/awards/the-players-choice-awards-2018-1000013325
shuk said: I was pleasantly surprised seeing Pantheon trounce everyone else, especially after reading an article where it wasn't even mentioned.
Yeah I find that both fascinating and hilarious. The editors certainly don't care for it, but they are just a handful of people and obviously don't represent the entire MMO playerbase. I'm not surprised that Pantheon is by far the most popular among players though. It was the MMORPG.com Most Anticipated Game in both 2017 and 2018. Pantheon is the future.
edit: typo
So, I think the folks at Massively and at MMORPG are all aware of Pantheon as both sites have had articles about Pantheon in the past - in fact, last time Massively mentioned Pantheon, the tone was pretty positive: https://massivelyop.com/2018/12/12/pantheons-full-world-begins-to-emerge-as-pre-alpha-winds-down/
I'm not sure why either site snubbed the game on their "Most Anticipated" poll, but like someone else mentioned, Pantheon hasn't exactly done a lot of big glitzy marketing recently. Which, I think is ok given the stage of development the game is at. Come Alpha though, I would hope to see that marketing push begin in earnest, since once the Alpha train gets rolling there's going to be a lot more game to show off.
I want everyone who plays MMOs to be excited about Pantheon, but in order for that to happen, we (Pantheon's fans and supporters) have to stop talking about how it's going to go back to what was good about older games. We say that and anyone who's not us hears "hardcore, EQ clone, blah blah blah". That's not the message we want to get across.
Instead what we should be saying is that Pantheon's going to be a game where choices really mean something. Where there's a lot of depth to your characters and to core gameplay, and it's not just going to be about getting BiS gear or an optimal rotation. It's going to be a game where the world doesn't just feel huge, but it *is* huge, and you can go all the way from level 1 to level 50 on multiple characters and still not have seen all the content along the way. It's going to be a game where the adventure starts the first time you log in, and just keeps going - not a place where your hand is held most of the way to the level cap. It's going to be a game where challenge matters, and where accomplishing things really feels meaningful. And most importantly, it's going to be new and unique and different. It's not a reskin, or a rehash, or a re-release, or a progression server. It's hopefully going to feel like an evolution of the games people really loved, even if it's not going to be exactly the same as those games. And that should be true whether you got your start in EQ, or DAoC, or AC, or WoW, or SWG, or any other MMORPG of the last 20 years. It won't be perfect, of course, but nothing ever is. But hey, people shouldn't take our word for it. They should read the monthly newsletters and watch the streams this year and decide for themselves.
Nephele said:So, I think the folks at Massively and at MMORPG are all aware of Pantheon as both sites have had articles about Pantheon in the past - in fact, last time Massively mentioned Pantheon, the tone was pretty positive: https://massivelyop.com/2018/12/12/pantheons-full-world-begins-to-emerge-as-pre-alpha-winds-down/
I'm not sure why either site snubbed the game on their "Most Anticipated" poll, but like someone else mentioned, Pantheon hasn't exactly done a lot of big glitzy marketing recently. Which, I think is ok given the stage of development the game is at. Come Alpha though, I would hope to see that marketing push begin in earnest, since once the Alpha train gets rolling there's going to be a lot more game to show off.
I want everyone who plays MMOs to be excited about Pantheon, but in order for that to happen, we (Pantheon's fans and supporters) have to stop talking about how it's going to go back to what was good about older games. We say that and anyone who's not us hears "hardcore, EQ clone, blah blah blah". That's not the message we want to get across.
Instead what we should be saying is that Pantheon's going to be a game where choices really mean something. Where there's a lot of depth to your characters and to core gameplay, and it's not just going to be about getting BiS gear or an optimal rotation. It's going to be a game where the world doesn't just feel huge, but it *is* huge, and you can go all the way from level 1 to level 50 on multiple characters and still not have seen all the content along the way. It's going to be a game where the adventure starts the first time you log in, and just keeps going - not a place where your hand is held most of the way to the level cap. It's going to be a game where challenge matters, and where accomplishing things really feels meaningful. And most importantly, it's going to be new and unique and different. It's not a reskin, or a rehash, or a re-release, or a progression server. It's hopefully going to feel like an evolution of the games people really loved, even if it's not going to be exactly the same as those games. And that should be true whether you got your start in EQ, or DAoC, or AC, or WoW, or SWG, or any other MMORPG of the last 20 years. It won't be perfect, of course, but nothing ever is. But hey, people shouldn't take our word for it. They should read the monthly newsletters and watch the streams this year and decide for themselves.
They're certainly well aware of it. But if it's not their cup of tea, that's their opinion and that's okay. They have definitely changed their tone in regards to the game quite a bit since one of them actually got their hands on it at PAX. That was a great moment. They used to be very negative about it, but seem to be slowly warming up to it. I understand that the game doesn't really speak for itself much until Project Faerthale is done. Which is why that will be such an important moment for the game. If all goes well, we will see a lot more players and journalists have much more informed opinions about the game. I think also around that time we'll see more marketing coming from VR. MMORPG.com stated that Pantheon wasn't included on their poll because it's not slated to release in 2019, which is fair enough. We all know it's still highly anticipated.
Anyway, I totally agree with your sentiment about changing the narrative from focusing heavily on the term "old school" and focusing more on what makes Pantheon unique and fresh - the things that will be fun no matter what games you've played. That doesn't mean it won't still be fun for old EQ vets. But old and new can absolutely coexist if done right. I've been preaching that for a while because I believe that it's vital to reach audiences beyond only the hardcore EQ players and expand the genre into something that can be healthy for a very long time. Great thoughts.