The first thing to remember is that the devs seem quiet because they are hard at work putting together the largest update for Pantheon so far. And that's something we should all be happy about. They warned us in the December newsletter that this would take a while. Any updates they give just slows down the progress on the update that we already know is coming. So personally, I'd rather just wait and see it when it gets here.
The second thing is that unfortunately these forums are kind of in a weird spot right now. That's just the nature of it and the overall stage of development. These forums were originally intended as development forums for the devs to discuss with the community, brainstorm, and get feedback. And they served that purpose admirably. But these forums have been around for more than a few years now. And the time for discussion/brainstorming only lasts so long. There comes a time when there's a need for less talk and more doing. Now is that time. They've already decided what they want to do for at least for the prototypes for the primary systems and are already working on implementing them. That means there's not really a whole heck of a lot of productive conversation that can be had here, when it comes to interacting directly with the devs, because we don't know the full context of what they're working on behind the scenes. Therefore, we can't really provide meaningful feedback until we see it for ourselves and can actually get our hands on it. Once more of the community can be actively involved in testing (aka Alpha), there will be a lot more interesting and engaging discussions with the devs.
In short, it will take patience and trust to know that progress is absolutely being made, even if you can't specifically see it yourself. Game development always involves an ebb and flow. There are high times of excitement where you can show your progress and hype it up, and then there are lower times where the devs really have to buckle down and get their hands dirty to make progress. That's currently one of the phases we're in. But remember that it is always eventually followed by another high point. That includes when we as a community will be able to get more involved, test the game, and provide feedback directly to devs. So in the grand scheme of things, nothing has really changed. As someone who has been deeply involved in the community for years now, I can tell you that the game has already gone through several phases where it seems like the devs go dark. But they always pop back up again once they're done working on whatever they're working on. That up and down of development is why a lot of companies choose to not unveil their pojects so early. If the game were not crowdfunded, all of this would be going on behind the scenes and we would be blissfully unaware. But in this case, it's important to not lose perspective of the bigger picture and try to adapt to the changing needs of the devs. Your time will come.
To those who know more about MMO development than I do, what do you think of my assumptions?
I am assuming that project faerthale will be the core model form which other world elements are built, - to my unprofessional and laymen eyes that means reskinning the faerthale box so it looks like orc land, then reskinning it to look like ratkin land, and throwing loot tables and models appropriate to the theme- I am sure I am wrong but generally speaking...
So if Project faerthale is then by extention a small model of the whole game, if they get THIS right, they can copypasta as many times as they want and fill the world.
To me, that means project faerthale is the long dark tea-time of the soul, where the Devs are saying little or nothing, but working on getting this right and knowing they have little to show for it. I imagine its not enthusiastic, but its a huddled winter environment. Nothing cozy about it- water needs to be rationed kind of thing.
After this comes the cool stuff. Writing quests, tabulating armor and things, drop rates, encounter design, AI stuff. It is at this point that I think we will be seeing more 20min dev streams as they show off new areas, which will come fairly rapidly and be the start of the true hype train.
Then Alpha, when its complete. We might see twitches of the same areas in alpha as before like BRK, avendaers pass, thronefast, the mines. But this time it will be testers, and Devs talking over them, or quietly watching.
During beta I expect to see alot more DEV/GM activity on the boards. The game will be finished for the most part and from a business standpoint getting folks to pony-up to post on forums is a good move. This will be encouraging to new players too if they see the buzz on the forums, like they are used to seeing with like falloutMMO but without the bag. Along with more public streamer streams of Beta to reach a wide audience- so new people can see.
Manouk said:To those who know more about MMO development than I do, what do you think of my assumptions?
I am assuming that project faerthale will be the core model form which other world elements are built, - to my unprofessional and laymen eyes that means reskinning the faerthale box so it looks like orc land, then reskinning it to look like ratkin land, and throwing loot tables and models appropriate to the theme- I am sure I am wrong but generally speaking...
So if Project faerthale is then by extention a small model of the whole game, if they get THIS right, they can copypasta as many times as they want and fill the world.
I am not a game developer, but just gleaning from what I have heard VR say, I think you're mostly right but it's a bit more complex than that. They are not ones to take the easy way and copy/paste... that would not create meaningful and interesting content. But taking what they learned from the development of Project Faerthale will dramatically inform their workflow across multiple departments moving forward, so they can work together more efficiently. In other words, it's not a true copy/paste or a reskin, but there are still some very important guiding principles they've learned about how to most effectively put together all the necessary aspects of a zone without having to keep going back and redoing it when other areas naturally evolve - that of course will save a lot of time. This is what Joppa said:
"...we’re currently working on the elven home city of Faerthale. Faerthale is what we’re calling our “reference zone.” It’s a zone that, from beginning to end, will show how all of our zones will be built. As you know, we’ve been very forward-facing in our development. But with the development of an MMO, things change a lot - there’s new tech, new people, new realizations, etc. A lot of the zones we’ve shown have been around for a while, and when we first started, there were a lot of things we didn’t really know about optimization to make things look good and run well, which we’re committed to. We’ve also learned a lot about how that ties into design. So Faerthale is going to be the first zone that, when it’s finished, will cohesively bring together world building, art, game design, and implementation to show complete systems, such as atmospheres, perception, climbing, interactable objects, etc. That way, we don’t have to keep saying what it’ll eventually be like. Instead, we can actually just let players experience it entirely. It’ll be a huge milestone for us internally because it'll be the first time that we'll have a zone that is launch-quality. That’s really exciting."
vjek said: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. :|
I disagree.
Polling and member input on the forums would be inaccurate in my opinion. These 10000 (+-) members on these forums are NOT the bread and butter that's going to make this sandwich. As much as we would like to think so. We're the harder core group that lives for the game, but we will be paying the same $ per sub as the rest of the 100000+ that will actually subscribe (hopefully) .
For example in my direct circle I can count 9 people that are gamers and will most likely give Pantheon a try once it's released. 6 of those confirmed. Yet of that 9 only one actively following and posting (me).
The only reason I am even here is becouse I watched silently as forum posters asked all through early EQ for things to be made easier, travel to be faster, mobs to be tethered so there wouldn't be trains, etc ect. And for it to totally be turned into what it is today.
We're not the majority, we're simply the vocal majority. And we have ruined the mmorpg genre.
Brad and team know what's best, I'm really glad they have a plan and are sticking too it. Build us a world Brad, let us know when you're done.
I was under the assumption the developers were more active in the alpha Discord and developer forums. At this point the open forum feedback probably wouldn't provide much for the development process.
But generically speaking, I agree with @vjek. At work I spend time on the whiteboard with a group of people for many problems before even touching the keyboard. You could swap a forum for a whiteboard to the same effect.
Still, I think a lot of you are missing the point of this thread. It has nothing to do with what we want, or suggest..its purely about interaction. Why not post something they finished or worked on this week, a zone, npc, tree, etc. Or if there is an actual decent post, make a comment there. Someone states something blatantly incorrect, correct them about it. These are very small things to do, but the effect of it is very great. Conception, Pre-Alpha, Alpha, etc the game stage doesn't matter at all - it is purely about engagement and interaction with the community (and future players) of the game that we are all supporting.
I hope that's more clear for all of you.
Fragile said:Why not post something they finished or worked on this week, a zone, npc, tree, etc.
They post a newsletter with these kinds of updates every single month, which is FAR more than you typically get at this stage of development.
Fragile said:Someone states something blatantly incorrect, correct them about it.
The community is pretty good about doing this without VR having to step in to answer the same questions/make the same corrections over and over.
Tylee said:Fragile said:Why not post something they finished or worked on this week, a zone, npc, tree, etc.
They post a newsletter with these kinds of updates every single month, which is FAR more than you typically get at this stage of development.
Fragile said:Someone states something blatantly incorrect, correct them about it.
The community is pretty good about doing this without VR having to step in to answer the same questions/make the same corrections over and over.
No, they do not. They post fluff. The dev ops interview from 2-3 months ago was fantastic. The 2 months on either side of that were void of anything. There is no personal engagement. It takes NOTHING for a dev to come respond to a thread here, or hop on a podcast or join an impromptu youtube steram. Also, have you watched any of the streams? All they do is cover the same thing over and over. Why can't they post a screenshot once a week? How about a "before and after" of a building or mob or terrain detail? How about a 200 word blog post? Etc, etc, etc.
Keno Monster said:No, they do not. They post fluff. The dev ops interview from 2-3 months ago was fantastic. The 2 months on either side of that were void of anything. There is no personal engagement. It takes NOTHING for a dev to come respond to a thread here, or hop on a podcast or join an impromptu youtube steram. Also, have you watched any of the streams? All they do is cover the same thing over and over. Why can't they post a screenshot once a week? How about a "before and after" of a building or mob or terrain detail? How about a 200 word blog post? Etc, etc, etc.
I'm with you about them answering the same questions every single stream, but otherwise I feel like you are asking for too much. They HAVE hopped on podcasts/youtube streams for interviews, how often must they do they so to satisfy y'all? You are really expecting weekly screenshots/updates for a game that is likely 2 years from release, but without any "fluff"? I'd rather them focus on making the game and only give us updates when they have something of actual substance to share.
Tylee said:They HAVE hopped on podcasts/youtube streams for interviews, how often must they do they so to satisfy y'all? You are really expecting weekly screenshots/updates for a game that is likely 2 years from release, but without any "fluff"? I'd rather them focus on making the game and only give us updates when they have something of actual substance to share.
So PA3 streams (2) were in August, Streamer Program Q&A was mid November followed by PA4 streams (2) end of Nov / beg Dec. If those all count as separate interactions, that is 5 times...in 7 months. With zero forum engagement. Unless I am missing something somewhere, to me that is just bonkers. If that is enough for you guys, well great. I guess we are on the opposite side of the coin then. But hey, at least we have more lore in the newsletter to look forward to.
Asking for 15 minutes a week of dev -> community engagement is too much. BTW Joppa is on the record MULTIPLE times saying they would be connecting more with the community. By their own admission they know they need to do more, yet...nada.
They've said repeatedly what they are currently working on.
They've also stated that once they had a significant amount of new information they would conduct additional streams.
When they had an influx of new information in the past (class descriptions) they've put those details in the newsletter.
Complaining about fluff in the newsletter just indicates that unless the "dev posts" contain meaningful info (which they've already shown that they will convey that via streams/newsletters) it would just be met with equal disdain.
That being said. Theres no benefit to them to post fluff. They will share info with us when they have info to share.
Manouk said:To those who know more about MMO development than I do, what do you think of my assumptions?
I am assuming that project faerthale will be the core model form which other world elements are built, - to my unprofessional and laymen eyes that means reskinning the faerthale box so it looks like orc land, then reskinning it to look like ratkin land, and throwing loot tables and models appropriate to the theme- I am sure I am wrong but generally speaking...
So if Project faerthale is then by extention a small model of the whole game, if they get THIS right, they can copypasta as many times as they want and fill the world.
To me, that means project faerthale is the long dark tea-time of the soul, where the Devs are saying little or nothing, but working on getting this right and knowing they have little to show for it. I imagine its not enthusiastic, but its a huddled winter environment. Nothing cozy about it- water needs to be rationed kind of thing.
After this comes the cool stuff. Writing quests, tabulating armor and things, drop rates, encounter design, AI stuff. It is at this point that I think we will be seeing more 20min dev streams as they show off new areas, which will come fairly rapidly and be the start of the true hype train.
Then Alpha, when its complete. We might see twitches of the same areas in alpha as before like BRK, avendaers pass, thronefast, the mines. But this time it will be testers, and Devs talking over them, or quietly watching.
During beta I expect to see alot more DEV/GM activity on the boards. The game will be finished for the most part and from a business standpoint getting folks to pony-up to post on forums is a good move. This will be encouraging to new players too if they see the buzz on the forums, like they are used to seeing with like falloutMMO but without the bag. Along with more public streamer streams of Beta to reach a wide audience- so new people can see.
Full disclosure, never worked on an MMO. Did work on a game that millions were playing simultaneously at it's peak, and made to-date, close to a $Billion dollars US.
Lot's of copypasta? Sure, but every single item, npc, quest, etc, etc. has to be skinned, programmed, categorized, loot assigned, tweaked, adjusted, tested, tested again. There is a vast amount to do, and I'm sure they are still trying to get their game to actually work with what could be many hundreds of players in a zone with hundreds of npc's all doing their thing? Lots and lots of technical issues to work out. What works in a small dungeon for a few dozen players is by no means any indication of a full blown, live, persistent world that has a semi-legite lore. And now with harvesting, crafting, recovery, or whatever they're calling it.
Very few working on any game have an understanding of how the game works overall. I'm talking about probably a couple people if that, and usually the people building the hardware and code. And when I say hardware I mean virtual of course. Still have to design em. And the DB's, memory cache services, etc. People that know the code, the hardware, the software, the networking, authentication, debugging, so on and so on.
Most people working on games are very compartmentalized. That guy works on graphics, modeling, that other guy is animation, that dude just makes content - items for loot, another person is writing quests, another person is coding quests. Then you have world design, UX design, QA, etc.
So even if you copy/paste faerthale, still a ton to do to make the next zone NOT look like Faerthale.
Sounds like Faerethale is more a technical proof of concept to me. A large zone, with lots of npc's, lot's of npc code happening, then throw hundreds of players at it. Does it work. Why doesn't it, what do we have to upgrade, rewrite or even cut out.
It would be very unwise for any VR employee to post in this forum. Any developer posting here will, at some point, because they are human, say something they shouldn't and potentially upset half of the player base. It would take an employee with 'cahonahs' the size of planets to post in this paid for forum. Forums are just too volatile an environment.
I agree with the orignal poster though, I would like to see more engagment. Maybe Brad could just commit to uploading 1 image and comment each week from the office. Basically, it needs to be from a dev who cant get the sack.
Can you imagine the excitment if Brad did a selfie and in the background was a developer working on something we could see on his screen.That would be awsome and the guessing games would keep the forums flowing for days.
Blood
To get back to the orignal post, and only speaking from my experience in the game industry. Most people working in my studio, of all the different jobs people do, did not care or even knew where the forums were. And when you speak of actual designers, those are a tiny, tiny group. One or two, maybe three basically in a studio this small. And really only one mostly.
Spending massive time on these forums reading, aggravating, getting annoyed with myriad opinions of what essentially are amateurs and hobbyists is not a good way to spend their precious time. They have just too much to do and frankly have had the vision for years already probably.
When they do start to read more, and I mean the designer, is when people in the forums are actually playing and have live game feedback. Probably what goes on in the pre-A forums.
People seem to think Brad's the designer. I'm not seeing that at all. Sure Brad has ideas and input but he's not designing granularly. Not in the weeds designing. Not dealing with the minutiae designing. He's not coding. He's not making art or designing zones. He had a high level vision. A general vision and it's the same vision he had for EQ1 and Vanguard. We all know it, those of us with extensive background in Brad games.
Could Brad post more? Probably. Should he? Doubtful. Brad's role is more the guy that's out glad-handing, trying to round up more funding. Using his game cred and gravitas to keep things afloat. It's an important job. It can make or break most businesses that rely on investment to keep alive. But he's not head-down in the weeds designing. The saem reason people want him to post here is the same reason people will invest.
My thoughts are everyone has their job. Community managers manage the community. Developers make the game. As evidenced by the barely recognizable horse, I think we could do with a bit more community manager involvement because who wouldn't want that? I think the devs should work through the CM's so there is that filtering process to make sure there isn't anything out that they do not want out.more would be nice but I don't think it is required at this time/stage of development.
Ultimately, be patient and know that the interaction we are looking for will come...Hopefully.
((Ultimately, be patient ))
We are patient - since even those to whom patience doesn't come normally are not exactly give a choice about it.
Of course one often remembers the poster of two vultures in a tree. One turns to the other and says "Patience my arse I am going down there to kill something".
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.
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!
I can say with 100% certainty that your posts ARE being read and passed on to the appropriate developers and I can also say that it is DEFINITELY a pain in the arse for me to do it but I love you guys and girls and do it anyway! :D
We have discussed something like this, but as a few have kindly pointed out already, it is a much more significant undertaking and risk than people may understand. We are not a large company, BUT we are very passionate, and with the lean team we have, we excel in working together to get the results we need to progress the game, taking anyone away from that would hinder progress as someone would need to manage staff rotation, vet the posts, organise the topics, filter via guidelines etc. and this will take time away from other things that are important to our progress.
That is not to say we don't read and discuss a lot of things that you guys post! As I mentioned above, I read EVERYTHING, I have to as I am the lead (and only) moderator for these forums, so I need to keep my finger on the pulse and while reading everything is hugely time consuming it gives me a chance to collect good ideas, info, suggestions, complaints, queries and share them with the appropriate developers, which I do often, I even speak to some post/ideas in my weekly CM meetings plus I enjoy it because I can get to know you folks better and interact where I can. :)
TL;DR We read everything and discuss posts often, we just don't have the time or manpower spare to validate it via different staff posting, instead, I pass it onto them so they can read, absorb, comment to me about it and continue on with their work.
The monthly newsletters are literally showing us development screenshots, giving us lore as it is developed, interviews with developers, talking about development and giving insight into development and some call it 'marketing fluff' and want more developer interaction?
Huh?
vjek said: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.
The scope creep in Vanguard proved nearly lethal. They just didn't have time to fully implement all 3 "spheres" on top of ships, player housing, flying mounts etc. And we can see from the recent Star Citizen or from the old Dark and Light how scope creep can go completely haywire! But I don't think you are wrong at all about this Vjek, I've seen several games that absolutely thrived with player feedback such as RuneScape and GuildWars. And while I understand the team is small it seems odd to not have updated the forums...that is not a herculean task by any means. I am happy with VR having a narrower scope for this project, but I agree that they should still be pulling data from relevant topics/posts.
Kilsin said:We have discussed something like this, but as a few have kindly pointed out already, it is a much more significant undertaking and risk than people may understand. We are not a large company, BUT we are very passionate, and with the lean team we have, we excel in working together to get the results we need to progress the game, taking anyone away from that would hinder progress as someone would need to manage staff rotation, vet the posts, organise the topics, filter via guidelines etc. and this will take time away from other things that are important to our progress.
That is not to say we don't read and discuss a lot of things that you guys post! As I mentioned above, I read EVERYTHING, I have to as I am the lead (and only) moderator for these forums, so I need to keep my finger on the pulse and while reading everything is hugely time consuming it gives me a chance to collect good ideas, info, suggestions, complaints, queries and share them with the appropriate developers, which I do often, I even speak to some post/ideas in my weekly CM meetings plus I enjoy it because I can get to know you folks better and interact where I can. :)
TL;DR We read everything and discuss posts often, we just don't have the time or manpower spare to validate it via different staff posting, instead, I pass it onto them so they can read, absorb, comment to me about it and continue on with their work.
Thank you for the response, and a little bit of clarity.