Hey guys, just sort of wondering where all the 'blue posts' are at. Brad and the team have been great about liking and retweeting things on twitter which has been awesome. However for a future player of Pantheon (and supporter), I guess I was just curious why there hasn't been any sort of chatter/feedback/engagement from the development team on these forums? Obviously I understand people are busy, and it takes time away from doing other things...but man, I remember back in the day when playing WoW - if you saw a dev 'blue post' that would instantly create some excitement, even if just momentarily. I think things like this are especially important now when there is so much downtime between phases. Maybe it's more of a technical thing, and just waiting for the new website and forums?
I know Kilsin makes his posts here and on reddit, assuming he's looking for some feedback etc - but that is all we get. Everyone here posting, have all paid or are continually paying. Considering how important community is supposed to be, it seems kind of distant. Maybe I am just so bored that I hit refresh too much on the page, but I am hyped to play the game - as all of us are. Any sort of transparency outside of the monthly newsletter would sure go a long way. I guess we (most of us anyway) can't see what goes on in the VIP forums to know for sure, but that's just how I feel (and a lot of the people in my circle). No hard feelings, mate.
Thanks for reading!
I see posts from the dev team now and then when certain subjects intersect with the development.
I'd imagine some of it is that they are real busy right now, and then there is the issue of not divuldging too much information. I would bet those in alpha see more from them in the alpha forums.
@Fulton I am guessing you mean VIP/$1000/pre-alpha. To my knowledge the Champion/$250+/alpha boards have not received a single Dev post in the last year and a half. I had hoped for more interaction at the Champion level but I guess until Alpha starts and we join the NDA there really isn't anything they can share that is not on the general forums.
We have been seeing some nice monthly newsletters but realistically those are PR constructed fluff pieces with very little in the way of crunchy developer content directions. Seeing as the VR team is so small and so hard at work it makes sense that the only one who has time to make posts and reports are the one or two specifically hired to fill PR roles and not Dev roles. Many of the repeat threads that get locked around here are due to major design directions that have not yet been shared. It might be nice to get a few “subject to change” answers on major direction choices but I also understand that over promising and under delivering can be very bad for a company’s reputation.
@Trasak.. Correct, I meant Pre-Alpha boards....my bad.
They are probably "heads-down" sprinting their asses off to get things done given howw "close" they are to getting things done. In this case, close being a relative term. The sooner they get it done the sooner they can get it out the door and get people playing it. I'd rather they be doing that then answering our silly, mine included, questions and comments.
Over the last year, more or less. the newsletter has become far more detailed and informative than I remember it being earlier. Still heavily marketing-driven but it actually contains real information in greater quantity than earlier. Maybe they feel that the safest way to communicate their thoughts on game development is in that format where it presumably gets some review by more than one member of the team, as well as a lot more chance to consider and reconsider than a forum post where we all see it instantly as soon as the writer hits "enter".
I don't doubt that with their experience in the industry they have seen many cases of developers posting things without considering all the ramifications, or using wording that was taken to mean something far different than he or she intended. I also don't doubt that some of the developers are far better at ...developing ..... than writing. I wouldn't really *want* it to be the other way around.
None of this is to disagree with the OP.
Anything they say on Facebook or Twitter that actually communicates new information should also be said here. I have no idea if that actually happens or if the OP is just talking about things like "thanks for your interest" or "good idea thanks for sharing it" and the like.
I also agree that the occasional post here by senior development people is a treat - we see some but it would be nice to see more. Even one every week or two (not rationed out on a schedule but when they see something they find both interesting and relatively harmless).
After this post, I gave up all hope of meaningful discussion with developers causing real change, via these forums.
" (May 26, 2017) - Yeah, I agree man, these forums were great to start with for the first couple of years but then it became impossible to maintain so many ideas and suggestions due to us implementing our own and tweaking them to include a ton of community feedback on some of our systems and giving us new and exciting ideas to implement, which we have done, but now we are pretty much at the point where we have nearly everything in or set to go in and it is impossible to change anything until it is tested, so switching to game forums and removing the need for ideas/suggestion posts will be good for both the team and the community as then everyone will know where they stand, what we have planned and been able to test it for themselves and provide feedback but until then, we are in a kind of limbo :)
I personally cannot wait until the new forums go live, I spend more time than anyone on them and the way I have to go about moderating and searching for information is mind numbing, especially going through ever subforum, every day, multiple times manually to find new posts, read them, reply or moderate them and then pass any gathered information onto the appropriate devs! The new forums will make my life a lot easier so it will give me more time to interact and do more fun stuff with you folks! :D "
And of course, the issue that these forums are horrific (as in code) in and of themselves is also a problem, which they've said are going to be fixed for years. Less than 10 SQL statements and the installation of a few packages doesn't take years. That's a few hours work on a weekend for a DBA or data analyst. The claim that integration of a few columns is causing insurmountable problems is disingenuous at best, and insulting at worst. The schema could have been chiselled on limestone in sanskrit, in the intervening time.
Once again, like so many other past MMO developers, they refuse to utilize or data mine their own community of interest, as though 10,000+ fans wouldn't be worth data mining. The hubris is astonishing.
vjek one can read the post you cited in differing ways and, as usual, I read the glass as half full not half empty.
Note that the person writing this said:
((I have to go about moderating and searching for information is mind numbing, especially going through ever subforum, every day, multiple times manually to find new posts, read them, reply or moderate them and then pass any gathered information onto the appropriate devs!))
This can only mean that things from these forums *are* being passed to the developers - it just is a pain in the arse to do this.
As for:
((it is impossible to change anything until it is tested))
I take this as referring to overall "macro" items such as Pantheon being a class-based game and a level-based game and just how classes and levels will be used in general. These are important but so too are innumerable details such as how punitive to make the death penalty, whether to have any solo play by design, how to handle encounters (the tagging and locking and related issues).
I would be out of here if I thought these forums were merely a means of keeping the core supporters entertained while waiting, and had no impact on game development either immediately or storing up opinions and information to be used while going from pre-alpha to alpha - may that day come soon!
Very obseravnt vjek. An excellent post.
I had these same questions in mind as well, knowing how easy forums are to implement.
When I was involved in the game industry my studio/team rarely looked or commented on our game forums. A few did, but most didn't. A community manager person might relay something that was deemed actually important.
One things it reminds me of is when I was waiting for Vanguard, they followed the same pattern. Had some kind of interim forums that filled up with massive amounts of ideas and conjecture, to just get dumped as the game got close to release. There is some logic to it though. When a game reaches a stage when it actually is live, meaning a much larger group of players get involved the entire characteristic changes. But Pantheon is a bit different with most on these forums being financially invested already.
vjek said:And of course, the issue that these forums are horrific (as in code) in and of themselves is also a problem, which they've said are going to be fixed for years. Less than 10 SQL statements and the installation of a few packages doesn't take years. That's a few hours work on a weekend for a DBA or data analyst. The claim that integration of a few columns is causing insurmountable problems is disingenuous at best, and insulting at worst. The schema could have been chiselled on limestone in sanskrit, in the intervening time.
Once again, like so many other past MMO developers, they refuse to utilize or data mine their own community of interest, as though 10,000+ fans wouldn't be worth data mining. The hubris is astonishing.
I was the technical hand behind the forums for my studio. Meaning installing, care and feeding, technical support. A systems engineer. Not a lot of DBAs in the game industry generally that I found.
And when you get talk about 'developers' there are usually only one or two that are the actual designers. And yes they usually have some hard-baked ideas of what they want and aren't that interested in others ideas. Developer is a badly used term in gaming. It seems most people conflate it with 'designer'. The designer is the key creator. The developer is just the guy actually making what the 'designer' wants. And I don't recall anyone having a title 'developer'.
dorotea said: vjek one can read the post you cited in differing ways and, as usual, I read the glass as half full not half empty.
Oh, I'm keenly aware. It's not the specifics that bother me so much as the lack of imagination. What I mean by that is, I disagree with the philosophy of: nothing further can be accomplished without testing. I don't believe that, because I've seen the opposite is true, over time.
After programming myself for over 25 years, I know a logical deconstruction of a critical component of any system can be done in your head, or the teams head.
With 10,000 heads all using their imagination, it seems reasonable they could work through the design pitfalls of any system, no matter how complex. History has shown me that pre-release forums are exactly this, and if requested, the community of interest rises to the occasion, often vastly exceeding the expectations of the development team. I understand the need for balance with respect to scope creep, while also having a personal desire to see elegant innovation improve the genre.
As you've correctly surmised over the years, I am critical before commending. Only because I've seen this same broken process repeated dozens of times with the same bad results, and hope someday, a project like this does it right.
Very few things bug me more than someone says "You can't possibly predict anything about this.." As it turns out, you can, if you apply enough imagination to it.
Beefcake said: Or, maybe these forums have become so cluttered with everyone arguing how THEY want the game, all the new systems that each new poster wants, all the new members posting all the same arguments that have already been debated and settled, and all the personalities bickering back and forth, thinking that if they argue enough with each other that VR will immediately do what they want. VR has already stated what they plan to do with Pantheon, but the posters here won't listen, and continue to argue their viewpoints. If I were VR, I would stop communicating here too. I would save the discussion for the PA forums, where people have actually seen the game so far.
In my opinion it's important that new members are able to post their opinions on topics that have already been discussed previously by others. Not only might they present new arguments and ideas, but even if there is overlap with past discussions it lets those new members feel more involved. And at the very least, it's still going to paint a more accurate picture of what people want to see in the game and how the community is divided. Just like polling 50 people on a certain topic is going to give more accurate results than polling 30.
it's kind of like when you are painting and someone comes nagging at you every minute. pre-alpha is just wireframes. could you even give feedback on a phase that is incomplete? it's presumptuous of me to make an assessment, but what do i know?
when the sketch is done though, i'm pretty sure they'll want feedback when they are ready.
Kaeldorn said:In my opinion it's important that new members are able to post their opinions on topics that have already been discussed previously by others. Not only might they present new arguments and ideas, but even if there is overlap with past discussions it lets those new members feel more involved. And at the very least, it's still going to paint a more accurate picture of what people want to see in the game and how the community is divided. Just like polling 50 people on a certain topic is going to give more accurate results than polling 30.
Agreed.
I've stated repeatedly over the years that I don't think forums have any place in pre-prod. Let the community have their own if they want to, but the only mechanism the development team should utilize are polls (with public history and commentary), an FAQ/wiki they control, and iterative idea distillation tools like Ideascale.
In other words, forums are not the ideal mechanism for this type of discussion. Yet, it's what development teams keep using, badly. :|
Beefcake said: Or, maybe these forums have become so cluttered with everyone arguing how THEY want the game, all the new systems that each new poster wants, all the new members posting all the same arguments that have already been debated and settled, and all the personalities bickering back and forth, thinking that if they argue enough with each other that VR will immediately do what they want. VR has already stated what they plan to do with Pantheon, but the posters here won't listen, and continue to argue their viewpoints. If I were VR, I would stop communicating here too. I would save the discussion for the PA forums, where people have actually seen the game so far.
As Watemper pointed out, they have changed their positions over the years, so I think there is still an effect on them which is something I was very concerned about from the start. That may be part of the problem too. When the game came out of the failed KS and they started their site, they were EXTREMELY active with the supporting base, but also keep in mind that the base was die hard old EQ/Release VG fans and basic Brad/Verant fans.
During that time, they bounced numerous details of ideas off the that base. There were discussions on grouping mechnics, detailed discussions on travel, combat time, etc... Now, the questions are more general, less specific and I think that is because they have already decided all of the major key elements to the games design. Also, keep in mind that most of the responses back then were in pretty common agreement. Back then, the biggest difference were between certain EQ vs VG featuires and which resulted in better play. Now, we have tons of other opinions coming from modern style MMOs driving opinion on many of the topics that to be honest were settled years ago.
So what benefit does it serve to get into detailed discussions over mechanics with the player base now? Anyone who has at the least watched MMO development progression over the years knows how much of a cancer late stage development change can be on a game (look how LoTRO harmed itself near release by suddenly changing its design goals to appeal to the WoW players demanding certain features, The design template for the game changed DRASTICALLY as the number of players were introduced into the later stages of testing). Early Alpha had a very clear goal, but by they time Open Beta hit, I couldn't even recognize their mission statement anymore.
In my opinoin, I want them to stop listening to all the new players coming in because this will only push the game closer to mainstream design. I mean, look at the types of supporters now versus the supporters early on. It is night and day, so much that I think many of the new supporters havn't even a clue what this game was about, what it was designed for, and the context it was created to serve. I think that the moment this game became "pretty", people shot to it as yet the next MMO to be devoured and that is what worries me.
I know the information drought can be frustrating but one thing I feel pretty comfortable saying is that even if they're not talking, they *are* reading and listening. I've seen things get talked about in newsletters, twitter, interviews, or the rare dev post that were directly sourced from discussions on these forums - and without being prompted.
The game shows real progress every time we get a look at it. We should all remember that. If MMORPGs were easy to build, there would be a lot more good ones out there than there are today.
This is not about GIVING feedback. Of course they aren't taking into consideration what anyone here says, they are making their game. They have to create what they are going to create and then see what happens. This about the complete and utter lack of engagement from VR. Throw us some bones. Go on a twitch cast once a month for 15 minutes and instead of answering the same stupid questions that they field every_single_stream, actually talk a bit about the game. Nobody is too busy to make a forum post once in a while, nobody is too busy to spend 15 minutes a month talking to followers, that is a horrible excuse.
Keno Monster said:This is not about GIVING feedback. Of course they aren't taking into consideration what anyone here says, they are making their game. They have to create what they are going to create and then see what happens. This about the complete and utter lack of engagement from VR. Throw us some bones. Go on a twitch cast once a month for 15 minutes and instead of answering the same stupid questions that they field every_single_stream, actually talk a bit about the game. Nobody is too busy to make a forum post once in a while, nobody is too busy to spend 15 minutes a month talking to followers, that is a horrible excuse.
This is what the post is about. A lot of you are way off.
Fragile said:Keno Monster said:This is not about GIVING feedback. Of course they aren't taking into consideration what anyone here says, they are making their game. They have to create what they are going to create and then see what happens. This about the complete and utter lack of engagement from VR. Throw us some bones. Go on a twitch cast once a month for 15 minutes and instead of answering the same stupid questions that they field every_single_stream, actually talk a bit about the game. Nobody is too busy to make a forum post once in a while, nobody is too busy to spend 15 minutes a month talking to followers, that is a horrible excuse.
This is what the post is about. A lot of you are way off.
Normally at this point in development, the only people that know anything are the developers. So we are lucky to know what we do.
Are we in the days of the bitter inability to wait for something while we aren't really included in the process outside of beeing at the first ranks in a stadium to see what happens and participate ?
A lot of people here are ranging from 30 to 50, with a few ones far more aged, what happened to your patience and wisdow guys ? Some are taling of "a lack of engagement" but is there even a point of comparison to this ?
I'm not especially used to back projects but from what I saw in previous games powered by users, there isn't much of communication in developpment phases. PA includes a NDA and a lot of unfinished features while the world is beeing fleshed out, and if you see what I'm talking about, some other "game" in development doesn't even have a forum anymore due to "technical reasons" since late november. Blizzard's blue posts is a post release thing, not even close to PA.
I'm not here to judge, despite seeing brave followers that were extremely loud "for" the game a year ago having shifted in the opposite behaviour now, but I don't think you're having the right approach of the game, and you will be the only ones disappointed in the end.