Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Yesterdays Stream

    • 185 posts
    January 31, 2020 8:27 PM PST
    So last nights stream suggests that shockingly little progress has been made on project fairthail.
    After a year of work on this one zone alone, they are still showing grey boxes and saying “bare with us, this is still early stages” etc.
     
    I pledged almost 4 years ago now and have never been critical, not once. But seriously this is now looking nothing like a professional endevor with a team of people working full time to make it a reality.
     
    The way the developers talked about what it was they were showing us suggested to me that they are seriously out of touch with what the community, quite reasonably, is expecting after half a decade of development.
    If this is an accurate representation of the state of the game, an alarm bell should be going off very loudly. Sorry to have to say it, and i gave real thought to posting this.
    But after this much time, im going to go ahead and voice my opinion.
     
    Feel free to call me a fool, etc, or just delete the post. Whatever.
    But good luck regardless.




    • 159 posts
    January 31, 2020 8:58 PM PST

    I'm not going to call any person names for just giving a honest feedback. That is what these forums are for.  PF is not just one zone. PF is one of the 3 continents with all of the gaming systems being placed into the game. So when PF is done all that is left is content for the other 2 continents. So crafting and the codex and so on will all be done. I want VR to talk to us, but I want them to have some secrets that we have to discover on our own in game.  I think it was said PA5 will be in March. If that is so. PF is almost done. 

     

    You are part of the Pantheon family. Don't ever shy away from giving an honest opinion. VR wants us to be honest with them. Most of us here can discern for ourselves and know when a person is giving a honest opinion or just spreading hysteria.  Hope to see you in game soon.

    • 185 posts
    January 31, 2020 9:29 PM PST

    Vander said:

    I'm not going to call any person names for just giving a honest feedback. That is what these forums are for.  PF is not just one zone. PF is one of the 3 continents with all of the gaming systems being placed into the game. So when PF is done all that is left is content for the other 2 continents. So crafting and the codex and so on will all be done. I want VR to talk to us, but I want them to have some secrets that we have to discover on our own in game.  I think it was said PA5 will be in March. If that is so. PF is almost done. 

     

    You are part of the Pantheon family. Don't ever shy away from giving an honest opinion. VR wants us to be honest with them. Most of us here can discern for ourselves and know when a person is giving a honest opinion or just spreading hysteria.  Hope to see you in game soon.

     

    Thanks Vander, i appreciate your reply and perspective. I would just dissagree with one point.

    Im pretty sure that the work being done on Project Farethale is indeed one large zone, and not the whole continent. In fact the area shown off in the steam was a part of the Farethale zone, sort of a 'zone within a zone' as they described it.

    They did address the continent situation, saying that they were in the planning and concept phase. Thinking about how they wanted all the rest of the zones to be fleshed out, and would not procede to Alpha till all of those zone are finished. 

    Planning/concept phase being the important reveal here. Meaning nothing has even been started on the rest of the continent. That strikes me as disheartening.

     

    • 370 posts
    February 1, 2020 12:49 AM PST

    Look I get you're venting. These posts come up now and then and I honestly think most people who vent are less concerned with the amount of money they pledged and more concerned about the slow progress they see for a game they are really excited for.

     

    This topic is sensitive though. I think a lot of people really would like to know how far along they are, even the ones that come in and say "I'll wait as long as needed" still would probably like to know a tentative timeline.

     

    If or when the game comes out I'll be excited to play. I'm hoping Alpha comes soon so I can atleast see something. If the game doesn't ever come out, well thanks for trying dev's, I appreciate the effort.

    • 238 posts
    February 1, 2020 1:20 AM PST

    I always thought PF was just the middle majority of the continent of Kingsreach. As for the rest of this continent not being worked on, we have seen Thronefast in a previous stream. I am sure that more work has been done to it since the last time it was shown. We have seen Aventures pass and the subzone of Halnir's cave. We have seen the Tower of the Reckless Magician which is located at the lowest point of Kingsreach and the zone surrounding it. We have seen Amberfate which is not listed on the map of Kingsreach. This either means that it is a new addition to this area, or it is a zone belonging to another continent as Kingsreach doesn't have an area that looks remotely snowy.  My guess is that Amberfate is either where the Slient Sanctum is located or its a zone that is found on the Continent which homes the dwarves. This continent has yet to be shown on an official map so it is hard to tell.

    I do however think that the Devs are further along then they let on. Joppa stated that they were trying to keep as much of the game as mysterious as possible to prevent spoilers and a dull playing experience when the game launches.  They stated previously that they wanted this pre-alpha testing phase to either be their last or one of their last before moving into alpha and they wanted alpha to be more like a beta experience. Which makes given how many people will have access to alpha vs pre-alpha. 

     

     

     

     


    This post was edited by Baldur at February 1, 2020 1:35 AM PST
    • 159 posts
    February 1, 2020 1:54 AM PST

    You are correct. It is the whole Faerthale area on Kingsreach. I stand corrected. Sorry about that mate. 


    This post was edited by Vander at February 1, 2020 8:37 AM PST
    • 839 posts
    February 1, 2020 4:37 AM PST

    A well constructed criticism and totally fair for you to want to express it like that mate in such a good way, i hope we get to see more too, just been keeping myself in the fingers crossed hoping stage with my expectations, because its all we can do. 

    Great responses here too, I hope the thread stays nice and civil

    I recon they are further along than they want to show like Baldur said, hopefully thats the case 

    • 245 posts
    February 1, 2020 7:37 AM PST

    lotuss79 said:

    Vander said:

    I'm not going to call any person names for just giving a honest feedback. That is what these forums are for.  PF is not just one zone. PF is one of the 3 continents with all of the gaming systems being placed into the game. So when PF is done all that is left is content for the other 2 continents. So crafting and the codex and so on will all be done. I want VR to talk to us, but I want them to have some secrets that we have to discover on our own in game.  I think it was said PA5 will be in March. If that is so. PF is almost done. 

     

    You are part of the Pantheon family. Don't ever shy away from giving an honest opinion. VR wants us to be honest with them. Most of us here can discern for ourselves and know when a person is giving a honest opinion or just spreading hysteria.  Hope to see you in game soon.

     

    Thanks Vander, i appreciate your reply and perspective. I would just dissagree with one point.

    Im pretty sure that the work being done on Project Farethale is indeed one large zone, and not the whole continent. In fact the area shown off in the steam was a part of the Farethale zone, sort of a 'zone within a zone' as they described it.

    They did address the continent situation, saying that they were in the planning and concept phase. Thinking about how they wanted all the rest of the zones to be fleshed out, and would not procede to Alpha till all of those zone are finished. 

    Planning/concept phase being the important reveal here. Meaning nothing has even been started on the rest of the continent. That strikes me as disheartening.

     

     

    But they have already built other areas of the continent like Thronefast and surroundings (seen before), Black Rose Keep, Halnir Cave, Amberfaet, Wild's End, Avendyr's Pass, Tower of the Reckless Magician.

    We've seen those areas before, and based upon the last gameplay stream with lots of updates to Amberfaet we've seen that even though Faerthale is the current project and includes around 3 full zones with 2-3 subzones, they have still made updates to the previous areas and a lot of work looks to be happening concurrently.

    Which makes me feel that a lot more has been completed than we realise.

    You must also realise that world building is not the only thing they've been doing during Project Faerthale. There's also character models, weapons and items, ability and spell creation and modifications, ability and spell interactions, UI, crafting, weather systems, atmospheres, itemisation, quest lines, NPCs, dispositions, behaviours and wandering, performance optimisations and net coding.

    They also won't show everything and will keep a lot hidden I suspect even in Alpha and Beta as Joppa quite rightly wants to protect us from ourselves and leave a game and a world to still be discovered come launch.


    This post was edited by Ezrael at February 1, 2020 7:41 AM PST
    • 21 posts
    February 1, 2020 7:56 AM PST

    lotuss79 said:

    So last nights stream suggests that shockingly little progress has been made on project fairthail.
    After a year of work on this one zone alone, they are still showing grey boxes and saying “bare with us, this is still early stages” etc.

     

     

    I get where you're coming from and I think plenty of people are pretty apprehensive about the pace that PF is progressing at, but maybe the language in the recent producer's letter could put you at ease? Ben Dean stated:

    "What’s left before we open up PA5? This list is a lot shorter. The living codex that governs the spell and ability system is in progress. We are refining and tuning some of the above listed systems, something that will continue through Alpha and Beta. Apart from that, it’s mostly content work -- finishing up zone areas (Faerthale has several play spaces, the last of which is currently under construction) adding population, itemization, more quests and storylines."

    They're showing us "The Murk", which is the last zone under early construction in Faerthale. It's unfair to claim that "the stream suggests shockingly little progress has been made" when they never stated the intent to show Faerthale in a minor update stream. There is obviously still plenty of work to go given that Faerthale is at most a third of the continent? As others have stated we've seen streams of other parts of Kingsreach as well even if they're not at launch quality like Faerthale will be.

     


    This post was edited by Nesy at February 1, 2020 7:59 AM PST
    • 3852 posts
    February 1, 2020 7:59 AM PST

    I must admit the OP has a valid point. Alpha now seems further off than even the more pessimistic of us might have expected. Combine this with a distinct reduction in communications (I cannot even remember the last newsletter, the new website has remained in a black hole, the teased changes in the pledge system have neither happened nor been discussed for quite a few months) and staying optimistic becomes harder and harder. There is only so far the 50th "Don't worry, we are woking very hard on the game" will take us. To use an old science fiction phrase - willing suspension of disbelief is not as easy as it used to be.

    • 2130 posts
    February 1, 2020 8:31 AM PST

    The fact that people are setting expectations and timelines is the problem, and is exactly why VR hasn't talked about timelines in well over a year.

    Stop caring so much. Do something else. You will be happier for it.

    • 54 posts
    February 1, 2020 9:24 AM PST

    The regular streams have been great and I am glad they started doing them.  Thank you VR.  Some things from that stream, certainly caught my attention, including the comments about King's Reach and Alpha.  What does it mean for the timing of Alpha?

    Based on the information we have, it's hard to determine how much is complete and what the timeline is for PF or Alpha to be ready.  One thing to keep in mind is that they are taking the approach of fleshing out the major systems in PF.  I am not sure if this is the way most MMOs are created.  I do recall that for Vanguard, Brad said they laid out most of the world before putting in all the major systems.  I remember he said that they were building Vanguard in layers and adding the details to each zone as they added the layers.  I think this led to problems when they had to release early and they had the whole world laid out but parts of it were not complete or polished.  It seems VR is taking a very different approach where they are getting everything working in a few zones (Project Faerthale) and once that is in place and working well they can use those tools and lessons learned to build the rest of the world.  This sounds like the opposite of how it was done in Vanguard.  Was this a lesson learned from Vanguard?  Who knows, but it seems encouraging at least that they are getting the solid foundation before building the rest of the world, as opposed to having a large world built but many things have not been implemented or tested. - - I was lucky enough to be in the Vanguard closed beta and I recall major changes to systems like combat, occurring late in the beta.  In hindsight maybe it was a sign that things were not well planned and the overall design lacked focus.

    Some speculation ...

    Is VR sitting on some cash and waiting to get all the core systems working before they hire new resource to build the rest of the world?  Or are they focused on building the major systems and when that is done they can put more development time into zone building?   If building PF teaches them how to build complete and polished zones quickly, then waiting for PF to be complete is needed before they dive into developing the rest of the world.  So maybe we could see a surge in zone development after PF is up and running.  

    Is VR waiting for PF to be complete or even Alpha to be ready, before they increase their marketing?  If a completed PF looks and plays great, you could see VR start sharing more about the game in hopes of pulling in new players who haven't donated.  But if you make that marketing push too early and players are turned off by what they see, you lose a lot of potential funding.

     

    • 185 posts
    February 1, 2020 10:48 AM PST

    Nesy said:

    lotuss79 said:

    So last nights stream suggests that shockingly little progress has been made on project fairthail.
    After a year of work on this one zone alone, they are still showing grey boxes and saying “bare with us, this is still early stages” etc.

     

     

    I get where you're coming from and I think plenty of people are pretty apprehensive about the pace that PF is progressing at, but maybe the language in the recent producer's letter could put you at ease? Ben Dean stated:

    "What’s left before we open up PA5? This list is a lot shorter. The living codex that governs the spell and ability system is in progress. We are refining and tuning some of the above listed systems, something that will continue through Alpha and Beta. Apart from that, it’s mostly content work -- finishing up zone areas (Faerthale has several play spaces, the last of which is currently under construction) adding population, itemization, more quests and storylines."

    They're showing us "The Murk", which is the last zone under early construction in Faerthale. It's unfair to claim that "the stream suggests shockingly little progress has been made" when they never stated the intent to show Faerthale in a minor update stream. There is obviously still plenty of work to go given that Faerthale is at most a third of the continent? As others have stated we've seen streams of other parts of Kingsreach as well even if they're not at launch quality like Faerthale will be.

     

     

    Thanks, that actually does give some relief if the area they showed was indeed the "last" part of Faerthale to be under construction.

    I just really hope there is a sense of urgency within the development team that i am not seeing or picking up on. Maybe there is and its just not coming though to me, but i think a better sense of that, and some honesty/opensess about the very obvious delays in development would go a long way i think in putting a lot of the community at ease.

     

    • 1428 posts
    February 1, 2020 10:54 AM PST

    i think prealpha 5 was suppose to be the end of 2019, however, the whole thing with brad probably had set them back.

     

    i'm not much of a betting man, but i would put money down that a small team is usually more personable with each other.  so the death of influential figure uwudune would negatively affect the team.  at the same time, we saw a really big commitment with his last out of the blue post on the forums.

     

    devs are human.  maybe it's a bit selfish or greedy, but everyone is entitled to say whatever.  if vr was under a publisher, they'd probably have the product out already.  it wouldn't be the type of game we want though.  so the community and devs have picked our poison.  guess some don't like the taste of the koolaid i suppose.

     

    with that being said, they need to have a polished product.  mmos scheduled to release in 2020 are extremely competitive.  many gamers are fed up with product that are early access, cash shopped or just downright falsely advertised.  i really do think the window is getting tighter and tighter, but it's better come out the gates late swinging then sooner without punch.

    Mod Edit: Removed misinformation


    This post was edited by VR-Mod1 at February 3, 2020 1:02 AM PST
    • 133 posts
    February 1, 2020 11:53 AM PST

    I have to agree with OP here...it seems that nothing is being done. They keep showing the same area and they keep going on about the same things, and they keep telling us "don't worry, we're working on it" more or less. It gets tiring to hear after a while. People keep saying that they have done other zones, and I will agree with that, but if what others has said is true, and that PF is but one part of a continent, with one or two more continents to go...think about that. They have only completed ONE zone within ONE continent with either ONE or TWO more continents to go. I doubt, and would hope, that PF isn't the only zone on said continent and that there are more on the one continent, minus the smaller subzones. If it has taken them five years to finish one major zone on one continent, and lest assume there are maybe three major zones on each continent, then it would be safe to assume that it'll take five years to finish each major zone. that's 15 years per continent.


    This is what the issue is when people aren't given a set timeframe. Instinct-wise, we try to gather how long something will take when not given a timeframe, so that he can see what we can do in the meantime. It's the brain's way of being time efficient when not given a time frame to do things in or expect something in. On top of that people that have put money towards this are always going to worry about where their money is going, whether or not it was 10,000 dollars, 1,000 dollars, 100 dollars, or even just 10 dollars; ultimately people are going to want to know if they have wasted their money on it or if there is going to be some progress with their money. Right now, people have no timeframe for what is coming out, when things should be done, and it is leaving people apprehensive and even disheartened. They only have the time that they have witness to and if you go based on that, yeah, the progress looks really grim and really discouraging for people excited for it.


    I don't want the game rushed, far from it as I have seen and played many games that have been rushed and are just lackluster. At the same time, I don't want to be left in the dark either. I get it, though, if they were to tell us every single little detail of the game and where they are, while that might settle and ease some people into what progress has been made, you eventually reveal the entire game and then you have people disinterested BECAUSE they already know everything about the game. It's a double-edged sword in that case and with that I would rather be in the dark on a lot of what the game has to offer, but I would also like to see that there has been some progress on other things aside from just this one small aspect of the game that is PF.


    Though as someone else here said, it could be that PF is taking so long because it's what they are using to test the waters a bit, learn some things and write down what's faster and more efficient to make the rest of the zones. They would be, in a sense, creating a formula to just plug things into and then they can bang out the other places flawlessly and with a great deal of speed; you can't repeat success if you don't know what the formula to that success was. I am hoping this is the case, but from where I am standing and with the lack of timeframes and such, my look on this game and the concerns are the same as OP's...the progress just doesn't seem to be there and it seems that my pledge was wasted. While that might not be the case and they might be damned near completed for all I know, but because of the lack of progress being shown, I do feel my pledge has been wasted.

    • 523 posts
    February 1, 2020 12:31 PM PST

     

    This is a small team, filled with many volunteer types, trying to make one of the more challenging types of games in existance.  We're seeing that inexperience and team limitations show in how long development is taking.  And yeah, it sucks.  It sucks for us who are waiting, and it sucks for VR whom I am sure wish they had millons more to spend on a bigger team and quicker pace of development.  But things are the way they are.  The reality is pretty simple to me, and I tend to believe I'm the norm for this...I'm going to play the best MMO I can play that fits the old school EQ1 niche.  If that's Pantheon, I'll wait and play it.  If it's EQ3 or another game not yet developed, I'll play that.  These guys at VR can take another 10 years to develop this thing, and if in ten years time it's the only show in town for this niche, we'll all be playing it because there is no other option.  If other options are developed while VR takes forever to make their game, and those other options are better products, than Pantheon is probably doomed.  Regardless, VR has to make the best game it can to fight off the inevitable competition.  However long that takes, it takes.  If they rush it and put out a subpar game, they essentially commit game suicide.  So, nobody is happy right now, VR has to plow ahead despite the endless criticism, and we have to wait for either this game or another to show up.

    • 6 posts
    February 1, 2020 12:33 PM PST

    This comment will be used in newsfeeds in the year 2027. As proof that I am a clairvoyant gypsy that can see the future of everything but lottery numbers.  

    Timeline as follows: 

    2021-2022 alpha 1-3 

    2022-2024 alpha 4-6

    2024-2026 beta 1-3

    2026-2027 beta 4-6

    2027 finished product released three weeks before world war III kicks off. It's not all bad news though. We will play the hell out of it before the bombs knock out the internet so we have that going for us.   

    • 3852 posts
    February 1, 2020 3:47 PM PST

    At least world war IV won't interfere. With bows and arrows the bleeding edge high tech weapons - if the human race is really lucky - it shouldn't impact the internet at all.

    • 49 posts
    February 1, 2020 4:33 PM PST
    I can understand OPs comments. The best advise I can give is just to ignore the game development and just come back every 6 months to check in on the updates. This is my 6 month check in :)

    We really do not have a good view of their progress from the outside. I have personally not donate to the game and probably will not until my view of real progress is made.

    We will all have different views of that.
    • 945 posts
    February 1, 2020 4:41 PM PST

    I'm playing a game right now that has been in Beta since 2012 - it likely isn't going to go live but I'm enjoying playing it in Beta.  With that said, I would be happy playing PRotF in Alpha knowing that the game isn't completely developed.  Having paid money to back this over 4 years ago, and still not even having access to Alpha (even though people that could afford to pay more are able to play the game) is kind of like a kick in the nuts.  So I get what you're saying - but it was very clear that they are going to milk as much money as possible from the Pre-Alph phase... as long as people keep pledging they will likely not open up Alpha until the game is actually ready for what should be Closed Beta.

    But it is what it is.

    • 159 posts
    February 1, 2020 5:44 PM PST

    Darch said:

     will likely not open up Alpha until the game is actually ready for what should be Closed Beta.

     

     

    That I do agree with. It does seems like VR wants to have the game 100% polish before going to alpha.

    • 346 posts
    February 1, 2020 8:13 PM PST

    lotuss79 said:

    So last nights stream suggests that shockingly little progress has been made on project fairthail. After a year of work on this one zone alone, they are still showing grey boxes and saying “bare with us, this is still early stages” etc.

     

    One zone? Not quite as they are working on the Faerthale City zone, Oldwood zone, The Murk zone, Redgrove zone, as well as Lo'Thale, White Gate, Faerthale Forest and Soul of Aegis. There's also the raid zone, The Island of the Infinite Storm. It helps not to be disingenuous as to the totality only to then criticize them based on it all. The other issue is PF is meant to have all the tooling in place, construction kits, quest staging, animations, new classes, updated and new races, new spells, as well as new mechanics, systems and features. The goal is to have a feature complete or near complete representation of Pantheon to use as both a template and to showcase for respective and prospective players as to what IS Pantheon. For this reason, it's far, far more than the previous PAs. 

    The newsletter stream was especially helpful for those who know what to look for. It was actually one of the better newsletters streams so it isn't surprising that it was met favorably by even some of the most vocal naysayers within the community. I would expect your reaction for a few of the other newsletter streams but definitely not this one.


    This post was edited by VR-Mod1 at February 1, 2020 11:01 PM PST
    • 1281 posts
    February 1, 2020 8:19 PM PST

    lotuss79 said:

    So last nights stream suggests that shockingly little progress has been made on project fairthail.
    After a year of work on this one zone alone, they are still showing grey boxes and saying “bare with us, this is still early stages” etc.
     
    I pledged almost 4 years ago now and have never been critical, not once. But seriously this is now looking nothing like a professional endevor with a team of people working full time to make it a reality.
     
    The way the developers talked about what it was they were showing us suggested to me that they are seriously out of touch with what the community, quite reasonably, is expecting after half a decade of development.
    If this is an accurate representation of the state of the game, an alarm bell should be going off very loudly. Sorry to have to say it, and i gave real thought to posting this.
    But after this much time, im going to go ahead and voice my opinion.
     
    Feel free to call me a fool, etc, or just delete the post. Whatever.
    But good luck regardless.

    I think you do make some good points but please consider the following. In 4 years, they have developed many zones, scrapped them, and started over. PF was a project that yes, started a year ago, but includes many features that they only started working on in the past 2 years. Many systems prior to PF such as dispositions, crafting, perception, and the questing system were only at the very initial/rudimentary phase of implementation. In the past year they have continued to work on all of those systems as well as completely revamp most of the art/animations.

    And I don’t want to come across as an apologist. But I do recognize that the first few years were likely very unorganized and a lot of work has been scrapped. Considering they had mostly volunteers what do you expect? The past 2-3 years, and specifically the last 1.5 years, has been much more organized and focused. Based on that, I think that if people don’t have answers to major questions, I think it would be a lot harder to defend the company. Hang in there a bit longer.


    This post was edited by bigdogchris at February 1, 2020 8:20 PM PST
    • 122 posts
    February 2, 2020 7:39 AM PST
    I am happy with what they are doing. The fact they talk to as often as they do puts my mind at ease... I believe in joppa and the team... I was actually thinking about pledging again because I like how the team seems to be working together... I'm sure what they are doing is not easy...

    I am looking forward to the future of this game and community.

    Thank you guys for all your hard work you are putting in.
    • 1399 posts
    February 2, 2020 2:23 PM PST

    lotuss79 said:

    So last nights stream suggests that shockingly little progress has been made on project fairthail.
    After a year of work on this one zone alone, they are still showing grey boxes and saying “bare with us, this is still early stages” etc.
     
    I pledged almost 4 years ago now and have never been critical, not once. But seriously this is now looking nothing like a professional endevor with a team of people working full time to make it a reality.
     
    The way the developers talked about what it was they were showing us suggested to me that they are seriously out of touch with what the community, quite reasonably, is expecting after half a decade of development.
    If this is an accurate representation of the state of the game, an alarm bell should be going off very loudly. Sorry to have to say it, and i gave real thought to posting this.
    But after this much time, im going to go ahead and voice my opinion.
     
    Feel free to call me a fool, etc, or just delete the post. Whatever.
    But good luck regardless.

    I think yourself and many in this thread are seeing PF quite differently than I am. You all keep calling Project Fairthale "a zone" or combination of zones, (irrelevant one or multiple) and yet I believe it to be so much more than than some modeling.

    It's all the lines upon lines of code stacked behind all the process's to make a working game. From the December Producers letter hidden HERE on this Web Site.

    Of the systems completed for PA5 (with varying degrees of polish and tuning), we offer a Chat System; Basic Climbing; Atmospheres; Climates and Acclimation; Perception; Basic Travel tools (like binding and gating); all classes are currently playable; world and player persistence (this creates the ever-living world regardless if you are online or offline); a basic pet system; basic crafting and harvesting; unique NPC Behaviors and Dispositions; a further-refined UI; a faction system; and an updated combat and resource system.

    All these things, chat system, persistent world, crafting, harvesting, faction system, etc. etc. All take a ton of programming to make work. These were all part of PF.   The model of the world and dropping some flowers on the ground were nothing. 

    I would have really liked to have heard some legitimate questions for Jason, the Sr. Programmer in this last Jan. 30 Development update (instead of Roenick that asked him "how long has he been growing his beard" ) 

    The pretty pictures we see like in the Codex and Zones, are nothing compared to the lines upon lines of code in the background to make all that stuff happen. (Invisibly to the user)