dorotea said:I've tried to talk-up Pantheon in other games but it is harder every month to rebut the "just vaporware, no visible movement other than carefully crafted streams and pictures" responses.
Well it is too far off for most people to really pay much attention to anyway; I'd hold off on talking up Pantheon just yet until maybe a year from now or halfway or so through beta.
We're looking at a 2019 release at the moment then, since VR have said testing will be a thorough one year period. Fine by me!
This is atleast my impression...
Gnog said:Manouk said:Saicred said:Wow I reading this thread seeing the timelines was discouraging.
I'm thinking, Bitcoin.
And there may be some that quit and may wish they hadn't.
/Hodler
Can you explain what you mean here? My English is pretty okay but you've totally lost me. No idea what you're saying here.
Sorry if my analogy was too short.
My understadning of the response to "the timelines being discouraging" implied a level of impatience or a forlorn mood generated by the length of time having so far passed while expecting the Pre-Alpha_alpha date.
In response to this, I curtly made an analogy against Bitcoin and the analogy is this: As Bitcoin, when begun, also took many years before it gained not only popularity but also recognition of value- so would Pantheon- like bitcoin- also may take many years before it gains not only in popularity but also in recognition of value.
Essentially the same patient anticipation as applied to Bitcoin- I'm thinking- could apply here ("I'm thinking, Bitcoin")
The second statement was meant to apply this same analogy to those who may have worked for Pantheon and then left or those who supported pantheon from a fan perspective and then left- or ceased to do so. My analogy was- 1. as people started buying or following bitcoin and then cashed out early on or left so may other previous fans or employees of pantheon may have satrted and contributed to the creation of pantheon, and then left. In both cases it is implied that the true underlying value of Pantheon and Bitcoin was not fully grasped. as it is now.
"/hodler" was me trying to be cool and hip and include both the above statements in a current bitcoin meme "hodler" to mean those that are Holding bitcoing and not selling and riding the move to the top- and the traditional everquest prompt for an emote "/" and refining it even further in my effort to be more cool and hip with the final statement "/hodler" that combines both the current bitcoin meme and the old EQ emote prompt.
The emote association was a personal touch, coming from my memory of the saying "Parenthood is the only profession given to amateurs". The meaning of this colloquial anecdote of wisdom is: As profesionals do - whatever- for money, and as amateurs do- whatever-for love; So parents do the job of parenthood and raising their children not for money, but out of love for their children. no renumeration is expected form the children for the parents job at parenting, therefore, the only reason why a parent would raise their child is out of love for the child. The statement is quirky in its underlying and implied wisdom against reality. The added benefit of this saying is the latin roots of Amateur, being "amat" translated as love also give it veracity. That it also has the suffix "-eur" which is French. Paris being the city of love and historically the french being the cultural ambassadors of love from a european perspective (some would argue, Italian: see "Amadeus"), the fact that amateur is created form both those elements gives more emotional feeling or "oomph" to the Love aspect embedded in the saying.
Avalon said:We're looking at a 2019 release at the moment then, since VR have said testing will be a thorough one year period. Fine by me!
This is atleast my impression...
2019 may be to soon, we don't even have all the classes information released yet, and 2018 is around the corner. Maybe their just being tight lipped about it, but I would hope the basic information for classes would be released before entering testing.
2019 may be too pessimistic - the fact that testing didn't start in the first half of 2017 as hoped doesn't mean it won't start in the second half and if the one year of testing is an accurate guess ...we all can do the same math.
They are definitely being very tight-lipped there can be little disagreement on that, even by their own standards.
Manouk said:
My understadning of the response to "the timelines being discouraging" implied a level of impatience or a forlorn mood generated by the length of time having so far passed while expecting the Pre-Alpha_alpha date.
Sorry, yes my comment was just simply - Reading that Pre-alpha goals were originally set for 2015 and release 2017 made me discouraged is all.
This does not have anything to do with me leaving early or such as I'm the actually giving all I literally can a month to help support VR. But this comment was mainly due to the fact that I don't see Pantheon fully released till 2021+ which worries me that funding won't support a development cycle that far out, which could lead to Vanguard 2.0.
Again I'm not upset with the length of development time at all, just worried the little I can give to support the game build won't be enough to get the game we all dream of out the door in a finished state. I'm really hoping they are just holding a ton of work back from us so we can find out on our own in game, and that they aren't just showing the very limited amount of content because that's all they have. I think the thing that I'm most concerned about is the amount of work left to get to a finished state. As far as we have been shown at the pace we see today I'm fearful 2021 may be too soon for release, and again the question of how long can our funding support the development of this game comes to mind.
All in all I love what Brad and team are trying to do for us, but fear the length of time and money needed for development of such a game may once again spoil this for us all. Sure you can say "We won't release until its ready", but if money runs out...?
I've also been reading a lot on why Vanguard Failed, and some of the information out their just leads to concern is all. Even with Brad's comments on the matter it only gives X amount of faith and trust which overtime can start to be questioned. Kinda like how Microsoft gave that trust early on, and overtime started to question which lead to stopping the funding. Regardless of past I'm trying to put that trust in the team, and ignore certain things I would consider red flags.
Overall updating the website with new information, giving us new forums, or even screenshots of new lands doesn't really mean a whole lot in the long run. Sure all those are great fun and nice to have, but getting early testers in to test and prove there is actually a game to play is really the big one. As of now for all we know very little of the overall game has been developed and even much less completed. To think of that, and the length of time we have taken to get to this point is discouraging is all. Again discouraging because sometimes history repeats itself, and its not something held against anyone but simply a reality. Even those with the best intentions can sometimes fail more than once.
P.S. - Hopefully this isn't taken wrongly. I'm here to fully support this game and this dream of bringing back what has been lost. I'm just simply sharing my opinion of some things, and hopefully in time all these small concerns of mine will be washed away with the pure enjoyment of Pantheon.
Edit: Made GOALS bold and underlined to ensure these weren't thought to be promises or hard deadlines that have past, but just simply goals.
Shea said:Saicred you said getting early testers in to test and prove there is actually a game ????????????????????
The streams with Cohh and others proves they are playing Something ( must be a game of some sorts ) .
Patience is a virtue , unless your impatient :)
Very good point! :) - the streams with Cohh were nice for sure!
Streams and pictures are nice but they don't actually mean much. It isn't hard to create them and make them show more than is actually there. Not that I am even remotely implying that these streams are slanted that way but I am a fanboi as are most of us and *want* to believe.
Saicred is right - progressing to the testing that had been hoped for this year (but definitely never promised) will mean more to prospective new pledgers and investors than any streams or pictures, however well done.
Saicred said:Shea said:Saicred you said getting early testers in to test and prove there is actually a game ????????????????????
The streams with Cohh and others proves they are playing Something ( must be a game of some sorts ) .
Patience is a virtue , unless your impatient :)
Very good point! :) - the streams with Cohh were nice for sure!
It was mentioned by VR that "the streams took a lot of work to set up"
If you think about it what could take "a lot of time to set up" on a playable game? Download the client? Create a Character? Run to the zone there going to start in? (no they GM port there) none if that takes long
The Lot of time was to put in to "staged" demo, nothing deceatful they have never claimed to be ready for players, for a Stream at this point they need to plan a route, plane what they want to demo for us and place them on that route, they need to place NPC's an program them.... "a lot or work"
To make it APPEAR to us as ready to play... they did a very good job of it as well!
dorotea said:Streams and pictures are nice but they don't actually mean much. It isn't hard to create them and make them show more than is actually there. Not that I am even remotely implying that these streams are slanted that way but I am a fanboi as are most of us and *want* to believe.
Saicred is right - progressing to the testing that had been hoped for this year (but definitely never promised) will mean more to prospective new pledgers and investors than any streams or pictures, however well done.
Many games have progressed to testing stages some for many years in Alpha some will never leave Alpha , I honestly dont see more Subs just because they entered Alpha testing .
Many games keep you guessing for many years with little released (photos, streams , class info or race ) , I think The developers working on PROTF are taking thier time to do it right .
Having said that , I agree taking to long could also cause lost of interest or disbelief that said such game even exsists , I have confidence in the team .
Besides even if it never get released my money was well spent even at the ****$ pledge , If i spend 20 going to movies , anywhere from 8$ to 20 $ on good book ( which takes me only a few hours to read ) . I have already spent that ***$ . I have watched mutiple streams some lasting 3 plus hours .
I do wish they would offer items to add to our pledges , for i would spend more :) . I mean for example : if i were to upgrade just to get a postcard well i would lose my cloth map :( I would have to upgrade 3 times to keep it . ( boggles mind ) . I think if they want more money offer some items seperately . example :
Postcard from teams = 10 $
Cloth map = 60 $
Phone call from Brad = Priceless
This way rather then upgrading packages , people can get certain things they might want to add to thier packages without any loss .
This game will go into testing when its ready to be tested regardless how patient or impatient we might be ...\ HURRY UP NOW :):)
Zorkon said:It was mentioned by VR that "the streams took a lot of work to set up"
If you think about it what could take "a lot of time to set up" on a playable game? Download the client? Create a Character? Run to the zone there going to start in? (no they GM port there) none if that takes long
The Lot of time was to put in to "staged" demo, nothing deceatful they have never claimed to be ready for players, for a Stream at this point they need to plan a route, plane what they want to demo for us and place them on that route, they need to place NPC's an program them.... "a lot or work"
To make it APPEAR to us as ready to play... they did a very good job of it as well!
What's strange about that? The game is in early development. Assets probably live totally apart from each other - maps on one dev's computer, architecture on another's, AI and NPC scripts on another's... I don't think making a game is like building a Lego, where you just keep adding until it's finished. If it's true that they needed to put some maps together, populate them with architecture/NPCs/enemies and set up the relevant scripts for the streams, that seems pretty normal for me. Nor do I expect that pre-alpha/alpha will contain the full game for testing (because that's what these stages will be about, it's not early access).
Right after the last streams with Cohh, VR closed a round of financing and said they'd be focusing on starting pre-alpha as soon as possible. They've also stated multiple times that no dates are set in stone. I don't see anything that makes me think they're lagging particularly badly.
daemonios said:Zorkon said:It was mentioned by VR that "the streams took a lot of work to set up"
If you think about it what could take "a lot of time to set up" on a playable game? Download the client? Create a Character? Run to the zone there going to start in? (no they GM port there) none if that takes long
The Lot of time was to put in to "staged" demo, nothing deceatful they have never claimed to be ready for players, for a Stream at this point they need to plan a route, plane what they want to demo for us and place them on that route, they need to place NPC's an program them.... "a lot or work"
To make it APPEAR to us as ready to play... they did a very good job of it as well!
What's strange about that? The game is in early development. Assets probably live totally apart from each other - maps on one dev's computer, architecture on another's, AI and NPC scripts on another's... I don't think making a game is like building a Lego, where you just keep adding until it's finished. If it's true that they needed to put some maps together, populate them with architecture/NPCs/enemies and set up the relevant scripts for the streams, that seems pretty normal for me. Nor do I expect that pre-alpha/alpha will contain the full game for testing (because that's what these stages will be about, it's not early access).
Right after the last streams with Cohh, VR closed a round of financing and said they'd be focusing on starting pre-alpha as soon as possible. They've also stated multiple times that no dates are set in stone. I don't see anything that makes me think they're lagging particularly badly.
I'm with you 100%. I wasn't implying there was anything strange about it. Just that it "is" where they are. In fact I think it's right where they should be. Nothing that makes me think they're lagging. I think you however did a lot better job of articulating it than I did, I'll thank you for that. Not one of my strong points. (Expecially on this phone I can hardly see)
I was just wanting to point out that with all that in mind, they did a great job of putting all the pieces together giving the appearance that the world was closer than it actually is. The appearance was there of a ready to go playable game and that simply not the case.
MANY pieces of the puzzle are looking real good, and once a few more are ready and avalable they will be able to assemble the puzzle into the actually playable game we all are waiting for.
When Streams no longer "take a lot of work to set up" then we're getting real close.
This IMHO is what they call pre-pre-alpha.
There are no tricks or deception going on with our streams/videos, it is all of our hard work, blood, sweat and tears that make those systems, features, mechanics, animations, artwork, combat functions, code etc. thousands of hours of work from multiple people spread out remotely across the world.
We just sweep up and polish everything a bit more to show the game in the best possible way for new people and potential investors and doing so is time-consuming and takes many people away from their normal roles, so we need to balance it out to keep the development on track and progressing towards our internal targets and milestones.
But the game is real, we can't fake what you see, it is painstakingly hand crafted by us, nearly everything you see you will be able to do in testing plus more and we are working hard to get the game ready for you to be able to do exactly that. :)
Kilsin said:Dhampir said:Wow so testing went from this year to next year. Good to know. :P
Please be sure to check the date of the posts folks.
My post was from 2016 and said that we hope to have testing ready by early in 2017, that unfortunately wasn't to be and we are currently working hard to get it ready as soon as we can but there is no ETA, we will definitely announce it to those who have access when that time comes.
LOL tthank you for pointing that out... I hadn't even noticed!
Kilsin said:There are no tricks or deception going on with our streams/videos, it is all of our hard work, blood, sweat and tears that make those systems, features, mechanics, animations, artwork, combat functions, code etc. thousands of hours of work from multiple people spread out remotely across the world.
We just sweep up and polish everything a bit more to show the game in the best possible way for new people and potential investors and doing so is time-consuming and takes many people away from their normal roles, so we need to balance it out to keep the development on track and progressing towards our internal targets and milestones.But the game is real, we can't fake what you see, it is painstakingly hand crafted by us, nearly everything you see you will be able to do in testing plus more and we are working hard to get the game ready for you to be able to do exactly that. :)
Do you happen to have a link... or more information on the most updated timetable? Or maybe something that all of us could check that's devoted only to the current time table that is updated regularly? For us nerds that love to follow those kinda things.
Kilsin said:Reht said:I saw the first one, but that was before the goal deadline had passed and Kilsin mentioned reading the FAQ before asking questions that have been answered. However i didn't see the second one (wouldn't have read it anyway due to the thread title), thanks for that. Still should have updated the FAQ, even if it was simply first quarter 2016, shouldn't have to sift through threads for information like that.
We haven't updated the FAQ because we don't have a set date for testing, once we do, we will ;)
I just saw this post, and your response. I hope it is never a set date but an approx time frame. This way we will not have 10 million questions, "when is alpha, when is beta......" There is so many reason why devs should not announce a date, because 9 times out of 10 it is never met. Approx time like 6-8 months away 2019 what ever but never a couple of weeks and we get to start testing. Delays are very common and the more i see these Early Access games, the more i wonder why do they always tell us a date.
Get my drift Kil?
and btw HI hope all is well with you brother. :)
Crazzie said:Kilsin said:Reht said:I saw the first one, but that was before the goal deadline had passed and Kilsin mentioned reading the FAQ before asking questions that have been answered. However i didn't see the second one (wouldn't have read it anyway due to the thread title), thanks for that. Still should have updated the FAQ, even if it was simply first quarter 2016, shouldn't have to sift through threads for information like that.
We haven't updated the FAQ because we don't have a set date for testing, once we do, we will ;)
I just saw this post, and your response. I hope it is never a set date but an approx time frame. This way we will not have 10 million questions, "when is alpha, when is beta......" There is so many reason why devs should not announce a date, because 9 times out of 10 it is never met. Approx time like 6-8 months away 2019 what ever but never a couple of weeks and we get to start testing. Delays are very common and the more i see these Early Access games, the more i wonder why do they always tell us a date.
Get my drift Kil?
and btw HI hope all is well with you brother. :)
I agree, no date. I'll take that a step furthef and say not even a time frame. What i would like to see would be an undated gantt chart or even just a checklist of items needing compleated a list for example based on the July newsletter and "The love of AI"
1) system rewrite to allow for generic stimuli and actions = complete
2) the designer tools for creating more complex NPC routines = 10%
The list or chart could be updated every month as part of the newsletter. It would show progress without wory of breaking "promise" dates
Zorkon said:daemonios said:Zorkon said:It was mentioned by VR that "the streams took a lot of work to set up"
If you think about it what could take "a lot of time to set up" on a playable game? Download the client? Create a Character? Run to the zone there going to start in? (no they GM port there) none if that takes long
The Lot of time was to put in to "staged" demo, nothing deceatful they have never claimed to be ready for players, for a Stream at this point they need to plan a route, plane what they want to demo for us and place them on that route, they need to place NPC's an program them.... "a lot or work"
To make it APPEAR to us as ready to play... they did a very good job of it as well!
What's strange about that? The game is in early development. Assets probably live totally apart from each other - maps on one dev's computer, architecture on another's, AI and NPC scripts on another's... I don't think making a game is like building a Lego, where you just keep adding until it's finished. If it's true that they needed to put some maps together, populate them with architecture/NPCs/enemies and set up the relevant scripts for the streams, that seems pretty normal for me. Nor do I expect that pre-alpha/alpha will contain the full game for testing (because that's what these stages will be about, it's not early access).
Right after the last streams with Cohh, VR closed a round of financing and said they'd be focusing on starting pre-alpha as soon as possible. They've also stated multiple times that no dates are set in stone. I don't see anything that makes me think they're lagging particularly badly.
I'm with you 100%. I wasn't implying there was anything strange about it. Just that it "is" where they are. In fact I think it's right where they should be. Nothing that makes me think they're lagging. I think you however did a lot better job of articulating it than I did, I'll thank you for that. Not one of my strong points. (Expecially on this phone I can hardly see)
I was just wanting to point out that with all that in mind, they did a great job of putting all the pieces together giving the appearance that the world was closer than it actually is. The appearance was there of a ready to go playable game and that simply not the case.
MANY pieces of the puzzle are looking real good, and once a few more are ready and avalable they will be able to assemble the puzzle into the actually playable game we all are waiting for.
When Streams no longer "take a lot of work to set up" then we're getting real close.
This IMHO is what they call pre-pre-alpha.
I may also have been lacking in coffee at the time of my reply, because rereading your original post made me see I was replying to something you didn't say, namely that the development was lagging :) Thanks for clarifying, though!
Nymphey said:Kilsin said:There are no tricks or deception going on with our streams/videos, it is all of our hard work, blood, sweat and tears that make those systems, features, mechanics, animations, artwork, combat functions, code etc. thousands of hours of work from multiple people spread out remotely across the world.
We just sweep up and polish everything a bit more to show the game in the best possible way for new people and potential investors and doing so is time-consuming and takes many people away from their normal roles, so we need to balance it out to keep the development on track and progressing towards our internal targets and milestones.But the game is real, we can't fake what you see, it is painstakingly hand crafted by us, nearly everything you see you will be able to do in testing plus more and we are working hard to get the game ready for you to be able to do exactly that. :)
Do you happen to have a link... or more information on the most updated timetable? Or maybe something that all of us could check that's devoted only to the current time table that is updated regularly? For us nerds that love to follow those kinda things.
I do not I am sorry my friend, but we are working on some smaller updates that we may be able to share soon. :)
Crazzie said:Kilsin said:Reht said:I saw the first one, but that was before the goal deadline had passed and Kilsin mentioned reading the FAQ before asking questions that have been answered. However i didn't see the second one (wouldn't have read it anyway due to the thread title), thanks for that. Still should have updated the FAQ, even if it was simply first quarter 2016, shouldn't have to sift through threads for information like that.
We haven't updated the FAQ because we don't have a set date for testing, once we do, we will ;)
I just saw this post, and your response. I hope it is never a set date but an approx time frame. This way we will not have 10 million questions, "when is alpha, when is beta......" There is so many reason why devs should not announce a date, because 9 times out of 10 it is never met. Approx time like 6-8 months away 2019 what ever but never a couple of weeks and we get to start testing. Delays are very common and the more i see these Early Access games, the more i wonder why do they always tell us a date.
Get my drift Kil?
and btw HI hope all is well with you brother. :)
It will be a fairly accurate approximation when we release it unless we know for absolute certain that we will be able to make it, but don't worry, we are very careful to not promise something that we cannot keep. ;)
Such is the nature of the business.
For the most part (not always), in the past a studio would have a desire to make a product. In order to do so they had to finance the project. Sometimes they have/had enough to fully finance the project. This includes paying the engineering staff, the art staff, design, customer service, etc. That's a lot of people and probably most of the financing. They have to pay for development tools. They have to pay for marketing. It's a lot of money. The more successful games spend/spent more money than the lessers - understandable. Issues began when big name publishers started offering development funds to studios. The publishers don't actually make the gamers - they just market and sell the product for the studio. Later, some of the publishers also created studios to create some other games. Sometimes you had a highly successful studio that turned to publishing. But don't be confused: the industry is driven by the publishers. As a result of publishers offering to finance entire projects they also started including demands into the studio's domain: they wanted say-so on hiring. They wanted all kinds of things. Like publish dates. This means that the publishers were able to dictate to the studios when a game was released and even other things like Beta's etc. Not just when, but if. They wrote themselves into the development cycle. Something I beleive was a mistake. Nonetheless it happened that way. Games were being produced long before they were ready. Ship-withs exploded. The marketing hits were devestating in some cases. And this really was usually the result of the publishers pushing titles out before completion. On the other hand, Publishers sacrificed millions of dollars for top-notch games. They wanted a return on their investment. If a game slipped it meant a few things to the Publishers: it meant there was some bad management at the stupido - so they would force people out. It meant that the return investment was going to falter - though there was no reason to believe this at all. So the Publishers made SURE they could tell the developers that they could push titles. We have all seen the results of this.
VR has gone a different route. I applaud them. They kick-started so that they can be as fully funded as possible. And since they went this route they get to make all the rules. Good for them. They are able to take the extra time to create what they envision without interference from folks who are only after the dollars.
BUT! I hate this word. BUT! VR loses something in the process. What they loose is the task-master standing over their shoulder yelling "Hurry it up!". VR does not have to answer to this fictitious monster, demanding that VR push content before it's time. However this opens up a new issue: they do not have to answer to this ficitious monster. They can make a sudden design change that can slip the ship-date without consequences. It seems to have happened already. This is not always a bad thing. ANY slipping will most likely result in a better game. I approve of this. However, it is also a marketing hit. We try to avoid those. I have seen several discussions in EQ2 lately discussing VR and Pantheon. The nay sayers all take the same stand: the game is a hoax and will never really be shipped. The fans of VR/Pantheon always respond with "have you seen the live streams?" which invariably, shuts the nay sayers up.
There is a fine line we have to walk here. Improved game-play at the cost of a little more time. There is no finite line. It moves, constantly. It starts at a different point for each of us. All I can suggest is patience and trust. You either have it or you don't. If you are reaching a point of distruct or whatever you want to call it, I would suggest you step back a bit. Take a look at everyhting else Community has done lately. Re-read the lore. Take a look at the maps. Check out the wiki. Take a shot at some Fan Ficition - all of you seem to have some great ideas - write them into a story and share that way. Give these guys a break and wish them well. They have yet to see the hard work - it's coming.