Forums » Off-Topic and Casual Chatter

NEW MMO's on the horizon -- Pantheon better get a move on

    • 74 posts
    November 14, 2019 2:27 PM PST

    With the announcement of Crimson Desert (possible successor to Black Desert) and Tera 2 (we think) on the way.. Pantheon should take notice. The MMO landscape is barren right now. However, this could be changing within the next 2-3 years.

     

     ~ CaffeineInjected ~

     

     

    • 22 posts
    November 14, 2019 4:46 PM PST

    Seems like the development has continued to progress and that as more content and news updates are given, it would "seem" like Pantheon would want to get to alpha and have user feedback. Mostly this is just wishful thinking. Know many who read this are already annoyed or eager for any type of gameplay to be shared...

    • 470 posts
    November 14, 2019 6:30 PM PST

    There have been plenty of MMOs on the horizon for a while with MMOs like Ashes of Creation, Crowfall, Phantasy Star Online 2, Dual Universe, Crowfall, Project TL (formerly Lineage Eternal...assuming it's still coming), Chronicles of Elyria, Ascent: Infinite Realm, New World and some others. But none of those offer what Pantheon does as most are action-based combat type MMOs designed around PvP systems in some way.

    Pantheon is more old school MMO combat with that new twist and focused on grouping and PvE. The only ones that might offer something similar on the horizons is Ship of Heroes, City of Titans and Saga of Lucimia, of which the first two are superhero MMOs with the latter being fantasy-based. Saga of Lucimia is targeting the same style of gameplay and audience as Pantheon, but it's the only one off the top of my head that's even close to what Pantheon is shooting for.

    Unfortunately Pantheon isn't rolling with a huge budget so they have to do the "slow and steady wins the race" approach to development. It's slow but it'll eventually get there. It be great if they could get a big infusion of cash to hire more developers to speed things up without having to sacrifice the soul of their vision at the altar of publishers. But it is what it is.

    I'd love to be able to hop in and start playing and say that I can see launch even though it's a good ways away. But I can't. We don't know when this will launch sadly so we may still be in for a bit of a wait still. December 13th marks year 2 since the official start of pre-alpha. And there's at minimum one more phase of that at some point planned...maybe more. So on a generous estimate, we might get into alpha early to mid next year. From there, it's hard to say how long that will last before reacing beta.

    The wait kinda sucks atm because I have no MMO to play as nothing in this oversaturated, action-combat, overmonetized often pay-to-win drivel is not scratching that itch. I may have to pay a visit to some emu servers in the meantime.


    This post was edited by Kratuk at November 15, 2019 6:40 AM PST
    • 3852 posts
    November 15, 2019 7:08 AM PST

    I have little to add to what Kratuk said. I just hope in their proper determination to avoid release or even alpha before things are ready they don't fall into the other trap and wait *too* long trying to "perfect" things that are already good enough to go with. No good developer ever thinks a game is perfect - there are always improvements that can be made. VR is well aware of this trap and has said they are working to avoid it as well as working to avoid the Vanguard type disaster of release far too early.

    • 14 posts
    November 15, 2019 7:30 AM PST

    While i cant wait to jump into terminus I am greatful they are taking thier time to get the game right and not realse an unfisnished product which is a plague even with AAA developers in the gaming community. The finale product will be worth the wait and the community will be better for it. 

    • 2419 posts
    November 15, 2019 8:09 AM PST

    Kratuk said:

    There have been plenty of MMOs on the horizon for a while with MMOs like Ashes of Creation, Crowfall, Phantasy Star Online 2, Dual Universe, Crowfall, Project TL (formerly Lineage Eternal...assuming it's still coming), Chronicles of Elyria, Ascent: Infinite Realm, New World and some others. But none of those offer what Pantheon does as most are action-based combat type MMOs designed around PvP systems in some way.

    Pantheon is more old school MMO combat with that new twist and focused on grouping and PvE. The only ones that might offer something similar on the horizons is Ship of Heroes, City of Titans and Saga of Lucimia, of which the first two are superhero MMOs with the latter being fantasy-based. Saga of Lucimia is targeting the same style of gameplay and audience as Pantheon, but it's the only one off the top of my head that's even close to what Pantheon is shooting for.

    Just because they are not exactly the same as Pantheon, we're still taking about a quite a few games that can each pull off some percetage of the available playerbase.  Some of those do have far bigger budgets, far better advertising capabilities, potentially better name recognition.  Yes, there will always be some number of people which will stick with Pantheon regardless of any other game, but not everyone will.

    • 470 posts
    November 15, 2019 9:04 AM PST

    Vandraad said:

    Just because they are not exactly the same as Pantheon, we're still taking about a quite a few games that can each pull off some percetage of the available playerbase.  Some of those do have far bigger budgets, far better advertising capabilities, potentially better name recognition.  Yes, there will always be some number of people which will stick with Pantheon regardless of any other game, but not everyone will.

    Absolutely. But the question then becomes how many of those will have staying power? I'm sure you, same as I, have been around long enough to see the MMO graveyard fill up quite a bit. We've seen games come and go, some falling off rather rapidly. The new shiny toy will always get the attention. It's going to be a battle regardless. And Pantheon will always have to fight to gain and keep its audience, whether they're first out the gate or not.

    • 520 posts
    November 15, 2019 1:00 PM PST

    I don't mind that VR is taking their time - there is plenty of single player games out there that I can play while w8ing. I haven't seen anything about this Crimson Desert game yet (I'll take a look at it though in a moment) - I'm definitely not going to play Terra MMO - the first game bored me after 2 days of playing so yea.

    • 2419 posts
    November 15, 2019 3:03 PM PST

    Kratuk said:

    Vandraad said:

    Just because they are not exactly the same as Pantheon, we're still taking about a quite a few games that can each pull off some percetage of the available playerbase.  Some of those do have far bigger budgets, far better advertising capabilities, potentially better name recognition.  Yes, there will always be some number of people which will stick with Pantheon regardless of any other game, but not everyone will.

    Absolutely. But the question then becomes how many of those will have staying power? I'm sure you, same as I, have been around long enough to see the MMO graveyard fill up quite a bit. We've seen games come and go, some falling off rather rapidly. The new shiny toy will always get the attention. It's going to be a battle regardless. And Pantheon will always have to fight to gain and keep its audience, whether they're first out the gate or not.

    For every game that comes out there will be some number of players that will stick with it no matter what. A good question to ask is if a given player goes to Game X over Pantheon, and later decides to leave Game X, is Pantheon the next game they turn to or do they first go somewhere else.  Does what drew that person to Game X appear enough in Pantheon to bring them here?

    My first instinct is to say no, only because it has been pointed out for 5 years now that Pantheon is not being developed as a game to appeal to everyone.  It will not necessarily have broad appeal so assuming a player who gives up on another game would naturally turn to Pantheon next could be very unlikely.  So what exists in Pantheon that also exists in any other game either currently out or could be out before this horse ever gets out of the gate?

    • 1921 posts
    November 15, 2019 9:40 PM PST

    The two things Pantheon has that the rest (afaik) don't is: Grouping is the most efficient or almost the only path to gain personal power, and PvP is not required, ever.
    That's pretty much it.  Ideally they should be able to pull in a few tens of thousands of subscribers for many years, with that model.  Certainly, the niche is narrow enough with those two features, if history is any indication.
    The rest of them are either solo to max level grindfests, and/or have required PvP in some form or fashion. 
    Personally, I have yet to see a Fantasy-themed PvP MMO with involuntary victimization last more than a few years and/or ever sustain more than 100k subs. 
    PvP is evidently not the solution to the problem, whatever the problem is, despite 20+ years of very vocal claims that PvP is the salvation of any and all MMO problems.
    Unfortunately, someone on Reddit this past week pointed out the wikipedia article for EQ1, and it shows that it was started in 1996 and launched in 1999. :|

    • 844 posts
    November 16, 2019 6:39 AM PST

    vjek said:

    The two things Pantheon has that the rest (afaik) don't is: Grouping is the most efficient or almost the only path to gain personal power, and PvP is not required, ever.
    That's pretty much it.  Ideally they should be able to pull in a few tens of thousands of subscribers for many years, with that model.  Certainly, the niche is narrow enough with those two features, if history is any indication.
    The rest of them are either solo to max level grindfests, and/or have required PvP in some form or fashion. 
    Personally, I have yet to see a Fantasy-themed PvP MMO with involuntary victimization last more than a few years and/or ever sustain more than 100k subs. 
    PvP is evidently not the solution to the problem, whatever the problem is, despite 20+ years of very vocal claims that PvP is the salvation of any and all MMO problems.
    Unfortunately, someone on Reddit this past week pointed out the wikipedia article for EQ1, and it shows that it was started in 1996 and launched in 1999. :|

    Frankly, imo some things you ignored that are important to me.

    No instancing, a truly persistent world.

    A truly skill based game. Not a game where best-in-class gear can be acquired via swiping and/or endless mind-numbing grinding.

     

    PVP means nothing to the players that appreciate those basic aspects of original gaming that have been lost in lue of grand profit schemes and money-saving tech moves that gut the MMO experience.

     

    Simply grinding in EQ and Vanguard never got you best-in-class gear, until SoE took over and after a few years capitulated, adding it in.

    All other MMOs have been G2W/P2W instanced echoes ever since.

     

    Regarding the development cycle, yes. It's quite possible this Pantheon project is simply a half-baked scheme to keep a handful of people employed, working on concept art, feasible functionality and other pre-production proof-of-concepts, existing on pledges and fishing for more and more investments, year after year. Always hoping for the big fish money.

    EQ1 did get created in a short period, as did Vanguard. Both in about three years. Although most would argue Vanguard was clearly released a year too early. EQ1 was rough in the start as well, but loads of fixing got pumped out in the early launch. And it was such a new kind of game experience nobody had any pre-conceived expectations.


    This post was edited by zewtastic at November 16, 2019 6:50 AM PST
    • 384 posts
    November 17, 2019 8:35 AM PST

    Yes, Pantheon is bringing something unique to the table. So far, I haven't seen any other MMOs (in development or otherwise) offering the same type of experience and the korean mmos mentioned aren't gonna pull very many potential customers away from Pantheon.

    To me, 4-5 years seems like a reasonable developement time to create a world of this scope. And, even though I've been around for about 5 years now, I doesn't seem to me that developement really started in ernest until a couple years ago. So, I'm still patient. Launch is so critical to the long term health of the game, I would rather them take time to get it right. Might something come along that offers a similar experience? Maybe, but I haven't seen it... yet. We might. I've said before, if Pantheon doesn't pan out I'm probably done with MMOs - there's just nothing else that looks like it will capture that same sort of magic that EQ was able to.

    Edit: coincidentally this was in my YouTube feed today. https://youtu.be/UbXz2YjnGcQ  Yeah, VR has nothing to worry about if this is the sort of stuff is what we have to look forward to.


    This post was edited by Malsirian at November 17, 2019 9:36 AM PST
    • 2 posts
    November 20, 2019 9:17 AM PST

    Nobody here is going to be interested in those games. Maybe try the fortnight forums. Most people here are old and not into hand holding and banging on keys.

    • 220 posts
    November 20, 2019 5:22 PM PST

    nah.... no need to panic or fear....They will be full of cash shop and mondern mmo treadmill quest, etc

    Take your time Pantheon im not in a panic

     

    Onward and Forward.

    • 2886 posts
    November 23, 2019 8:54 PM PST

    Brad never viewed other MMO's competition. The healthier the genre is as a whole, the better it is for everyone. Another game might reignite that spark of passion someone has for MMOs, but when they're done with that one, they might look for another one and find Pantheon. But a lot of people have a tendency to just ignore the genre completely if there doesn't seem to be much going on. Brad saw the future of the genre as not just a King of the Hill situation. We've seen what happens when games try to be all things to all people to be the "main" game. Each individual game will be much better off in the long run if they realize that diversity is good. And just focus on providing a quality experience to a single demographic within the genre.

    • 20 posts
    November 29, 2019 8:38 PM PST

    Yeah i would like to get my hands on gameplay too, im excited to trym, but  alpha access is hidden behind a more expernsive tier than i can comfortbly afford, even my vurrent pledge ended up costing a whole lot more in AUD than anticipated