lotuss79 said:
Sweety, i would suggest they don’t actually have win the lottery, or even get significant new funding, to finish the game.
This will seem draconian, but they worked pro bono on the game in the beginning because they believed in it. They could just do that now because they believe in it.
They have no real hard costs. They all work from home.
The VR “Executives” and “Directors” contribute precisely nothing to building out this game.
They have a freeking HR department. Who are they fooling?
No offices, no rent. They don’t have to source raw materials to build a physical product of any kind.
Cohh pointed this out. They just need to put in the actual hours of hard work required to build the game.
Sacrifice now to have a chance at a future.
Get 8000+ Alpha pledgers in and gain some traction again.
Because no one in their right mind is going to give them money for their new “vision”.
Valorous1 said: I wish I could tell VR to just focus on releasing new zones and the races/classes and their skills/abilities. If they were to incrementally release videos on JUST those two things, I swear they would see in uptick in revenue, popularity, Likes/Shares, positive community feedback and more. Leave out all the systems, dungeons, raids, questing until way later.
Prevenge said: A playable product, stripped down holds far more interest to me than 247. Do people not agree with that?
eunichron said:
Prevenge said: A playable product, stripped down holds far more interest to me than 247. Do people not agree with that?
All you have to do is look at Embers Adrift and the multitude of other projects that die prematurely in early access to see that people do not agree with that.
The only way for Pantheon to succeed at this point is to release the complete and (mostly) polished product they promised.
kreed99 said:
I don’t see why everyone is upset. I really don’t. 247 mode to me is basically an open ended mission from modern EQ1. You get to mess around on a timed event with an overarcing faction reward schema. Sounds fun. With this being in development and never had certain mechanics and we are upset with the an outcome, any outcome? Not me. I am happy choices were made and there is a playable version. I would pay to play it if i had more money.
Art style? Hand drawn is just fine. Look at Zelda Breath of the Wild and sequel and tell me hand drawn can’t have ominous overtones. And lets be real this is basically gonna be an MMO with heavy Zelda BOTW influence. So it is a no brainer they went with a more timeless style that can weather time. I felt like the placeholder style was going into the far too realistic uncanny valley. Players would eventually nitpick every little thing with movement if they went with full realism. How would the fingers look when grabbing the sword while climbing and swinging at a spider. You want them to hire motion capture team and get super realistic? And inflate the budget and development costs? For what? An art direction that had no direction? Look at EQ1 it has a mix of really really bad old art and some really bad new art. People accept and move on because they like the game and its playable.
I fully accept all the updates and i am super excited to play whatever game this team puts out. Thats the decision i made when i pledged. I will be quitting EQ1 for this game. My mind has been made up for years now.
Keep up the good work team.
lotuss79 said:
Sweety, i would suggest they don’t actually have win the lottery, or even get significant new funding, to finish the game.
This will seem draconian, but they worked pro bono on the game in the beginning because they believed in it. They could just do that now because they believe in it.
They have no real hard costs. They all work from home.
The VR “Executives” and “Directors” contribute precisely nothing to building out this game.
They have a freeking HR department. Who are they fooling?
No offices, no rent. They don’t have to source raw materials to build a physical product of any kind.
Cohh pointed this out. They just need to put in the actual hours of hard work required to build the game.
Sacrifice now to have a chance at a future.
Get 8000+ Alpha pledgers in and gain some traction again.
Because no one in their right mind is going to give them money for their new “vision”.
benty said:
lotuss79 said:
Sweety, i would suggest they don’t actually have win the lottery, or even get significant new funding, to finish the game.
This will seem draconian, but they worked pro bono on the game in the beginning because they believed in it. They could just do that now because they believe in it.
They have no real hard costs. They all work from home.
The VR “Executives” and “Directors” contribute precisely nothing to building out this game.
They have a freeking HR department. Who are they fooling?
No offices, no rent. They don’t have to source raw materials to build a physical product of any kind.
Cohh pointed this out. They just need to put in the actual hours of hard work required to build the game.
Sacrifice now to have a chance at a future.
Get 8000+ Alpha pledgers in and gain some traction again.
Because no one in their right mind is going to give them money for their new “vision”.
I don't chime in on this forum much, and I have expressed my disappointment with VRs decisions before. This one caught my eye, as I see this sort of inaccurate information being tossed around. I've worked in AAA as a engineer for a decade, I can tell you from both pairs of shoes there's no such thing as "no real hard costs". Everything is on borrowed time if you're trying to make a game, even from your home. I can go into detail about how hard it is for indie devs to do this (in fact I wrote it all out, then deleted it), but to be blunt...VR isn't "indie". They have funding, and much more than a traditional indie team.
What they don't have is a completed and released game, and so they have no income. Eventually funding runs out, and people really don't work for free. Everything has a cost, even from your savings, and your savings wont last you long at all. Saying "sacrifice now to have a chance at a future" is something they very likely already did, and now have to throw a "Hail Mary" with 247 to try and get some funds in to keep going. I don't envy the position they are in, and I'm also very familiar with it. It's a tough spot, mistakes were probably made, and games are extremely difficult to produce. Sounds like they're pretty much broke, and likely already aware that funding isn't coming.
Tangentially anyone with a company probably has a point of contact for "HR". Likewise "Executive" or "Director" are just titles, but saying they contribute nothing is silly. Yes, usually these people don't do the brunt of the work building the game, but they also are probably highly involved in management of the company. It's not easy to do all the legalese, hiring, contracts, payments, marketing, and so on. This stuff takes a lot of work, talking to a lot people. If the development team had to do it all, it would be a big mess, and more work than they are able to do.
Anyway, I didn't go into cost specifics, and I don't plan to. You'll just have to take my word for it...the overhead is there even if it doesn't seem like it.
Brutenga said:
I see the idea of allowing pre-alpha access with a subscription floating around in order to keep funding going. The problem with this as Joppa stated is that even when it was 24 hours a month, they could not create content fast enough to keep up with the player base. Imagine players having access 24/7? You run the risk of people getting upset, proclaiming why are we paying a monthly sub for no content, forgetting why they are actually funding the game to begin with. That seems self evident when Joppa explained majority of testers were interested in simply playing the game as if it were a full release game rather than doing specific tests of specific areas at specific levels with specific gear, etc. Which to me sounds like a lot of fun. Testing dungeons, trying to break the game, testing classes and class synergies.
I do agree with removing the extra features and mechanics that can be added later and do not effect overall gameplay. Get the core of the game built. I suppose I don't know much about developing a video game. But watching the development over the years, it seemed like a lot of hunting and pecking at different aspects of the game at various intervals. With such a small team, I can't imagine spreading attention so thin would be conducive to development. I suppose maybe it was because the skillsets were varied on the team and you couldn't have every dev on the team heads down focus on creating all race models until completion before moving on to the next project for example.
Anyways, I'm beginning to meander. I don't know if 247 is the answer, I suppose we'll find out if they don't come up with a better idea to generate funding. BTW I'm not fond of that naming convention as it seems disingenuous, but I suppose that's neither here nor there at this point. Hopefully, someone thinks outside of the box and finds a way to blend pre-alpha testing access with the extraction game.
Hey, maybe put an arena (maybe instanced) in a pre-alpha zone that flags you for PVP to test your newfound gear from PVE content (dungeon/crafting), or just to kill each other if content to do runs out. 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, etc. Perhaps capture the flag arenas...battlegrounds type stuff. I know Joppa is averse to this, but just leave it out of the main game. Its sole purpose would be to entertain players in pre-alpha when they blow through all the available content.
My thoughts on what must be done to (perhaps) save the game.
1) This is priority. Restore the trust of backers. If Pantheon could more or less chug forwards during these last 9 years it was only and exclusively thanks to those who pledged. As it is now, the pledgers have in their majority (if I judge by the reactions on the forums and social media) either become indifferent or lost trust in the team. VR must start by a poll mailing EVERY single pledger asking them their opinion about the latest developments (e.g graphics and 247) and publish transparently the results. One thing should be clear - if at least 90% of the pledgers are not actively on board then the game is dead. It is not only necessary for the current crisis but also and even more when/if the game releases because the crushing majority of the players will be the pledgers and fans of EQ/Vanguard. It is they who did and will do the PR (and for free !) if the game is what they have been promised. Without them the game will probably be a ghost town.
2) Hire a professional project manager with MMO experience. His first task will be to answer one single question : "With realistic assumptions about the human ressources (paid and volunteers) what is the scope of the game that can be finished within a reasonable time frame , e.g 2 or 3 years ?" Once this question answered, fire everybody who doesn't contribute to this target and temporarily cut off everything that can't be done with the realistically assumed ressources. That means to put races, classes, zones and mechanisms like climate and perception on the chopping block. Give the project manager the veto right on any and every attempt to complexify, add, enhance or change features unless additional ressources are provided for. Fire everybody who does not proactively collaborate on the only common sense target e.g "We can only do what we have ressources for"
3) If the realistically assumed ressources cannot lead to a playable game with Brad's Vision within the next 3 years, stop the development and be open about it with your pledgers. If it is possible, establish a project plan with expansion releases which will gradually add the races, classes, zones and mechanisms cut off during the point 2. Communicate transparently about this plan.
shew, mailing every pledger and gauging the opinions of each, then internalizing and posting each result would be an insurmountable task for a dev team of this size.
That is the beauty of the forums and Discord. We can suggest whatever we want, but in the end we wait and watch the team do whatever it is they are planning to do and execute on. 
lutorin said:
My thoughts on what must be done to (perhaps) save the game.
1) This is priority. Restore the trust of backers. If Pantheon could more or less chug forwards during these last 9 years it was only and exclusively thanks to those who pledged. As it is now, the pledgers have in their majority (if I judge by the reactions on the forums and social media) either become indifferent or lost trust in the team. VR must start by a poll mailing EVERY single pledger asking them their opinion about the latest developments (e.g graphics and 247) and publish transparently the results. One thing should be clear - if at least 90% of the pledgers are not actively on board then the game is dead. It is not only necessary for the current crisis but also and even more when/if the game releases because the crushing majority of the players will be the pledgers and fans of EQ/Vanguard. It is they who did and will do the PR (and for free !) if the game is what they have been promised. Without them the game will probably be a ghost town.
2) Hire a professional project manager with MMO experience. His first task will be to answer one single question : "With realistic assumptions about the human ressources (paid and volunteers) what is the scope of the game that can be finished within a reasonable time frame , e.g 2 or 3 years ?" Once this question answered, fire everybody who doesn't contribute to this target and temporarily cut off everything that can't be done with the realistically assumed ressources. That means to put races, classes, zones and mechanisms like climate and perception on the chopping block. Give the project manager the veto right on any and every attempt to complexify, add, enhance or change features unless additional ressources are provided for. Fire everybody who does not proactively collaborate on the only common sense target e.g "We can only do what we have ressources for"
3) If the realistically assumed ressources cannot lead to a playable game with Brad's Vision within the next 3 years, stop the development and be open about it with your pledgers. If it is possible, establish a project plan with expansion releases which will gradually add the races, classes, zones and mechanisms cut off during the point 2. Communicate transparently about this plan.
Kaynrath said:
Kaynrath said: .....Conclusions So, looking back at the most significant events VR has gone through(in my estimation), I don't think they are incompetent. It's quite clear they started out less competent than they are currently, and that their competence grows with each challenging situation they come across with.
.......
So this is basically your opinion . Of course there is no garantee that other pledgers share this particular opinion and, more importantly, it doesn't explain why such dramatic changes like complete graphics overhaul and 247 come after NINE years of development. Is it believable that such important decisions like design and testing could not have been anticipated many years ago ? For me the answer is a clear no (at least not if a competent project manager with MMO experience is at the helm).
That's why I think that asking ALL pledgers their opinion via a poll should be VR's priority 1. The reason is that, as I already wrote, the fundamental target of Pantheon since 2014 Kickstarter was Brad's bet that there was enough of potential players in the general MMORPG population who wanted an "old school", EQ like game badly enough that they were ready to play it and finance it. Obviously nobody in the 2014 team was stupid enough to think that they were able to develop an indy game competing for players with the Blizzards, Amazons etc of this world.
It looked like Brad's bet was right but it also meant that since the very beginning in 2014 through 2023 it is the pledgers who would make or break the commercial viability of the game when/if it releases. A poll to ALL pledgers serves 3 purposes. First and principal is to measure how many pledgers are STILL on board because if it is not at least 90%, VR is in a very bad spot and Pantheon might be in trouble even if it releases in a reasonable time. Second is that VR would be able to identify critical issues on which a strong pledger's support depends. Third is that human nature is such that when you feel that you are respected and that your opinion (and money !) really count, you are more inclined to support a project or a company and your trust is strengthened.
The problem is they're in development hell and that spells the doom for most projects in terms of getting a product to market and overall the quality of said product.
Duke Nuke'em Forever got released once Gearbox came in and saved the day after 12 years of development. It wasn't a good game and basically buried the IP, at least for the foreseeable future. Now that title is held by Beyond Good and Evil 2 at 15 years of development, with the original game coming out back in 2003.
VR needs to bring a product to market, whatever it is and get the groundwork laid. The fact they haven't shows signs they lack the vision of what they're doing. Likely falling into a repeated process of endless tinkering and adjusting that will never reach an unknown status of "finished". Things get better, then they get a new class put into the game and that upsets the applecart, then they have to go back and adjust what they just adjusted previously etc. etc. into infinity.
The hardest part of writing a book for instance is actually writing it. Get a draft down as crappy as it may be then refine it once you have it. Otherwise, after 10 years you may find yourself writing, editing and rewriting the first chapter. Hoping that once it's "finished" you'll have an idea where the story will end up and be able to publish.
Ruinar said:
Kaynrath said:
Prevenge said:
Taking the world of Pantheon, the crafting of Pantheon, the areas/quests of Pantheon, mobs of Pantheon, classes/abilities/races of Pantheon and slapping a 2 hour timer with a thrown together extraction skin on top of it, does sound very much like it's still Pantheon.