If nothing else I would like to watch you folks play. even if it's the same zone over and over.
It's the reason I pulled my funding from Artcraft and repositioned it here, was from watching and drooling over the hour+ last game session that was posted.
:)
Chanter for the win.
Rachael said:Kilsin said:Talvaris said:Kilsin said:...this MMORPG making process takes a long time (usually ~5 years)...
Lol, this is one of my favourite memes but it is true, we expect to shave a good chunk of time off that due to using Unity but it is till typically a very long and slow process if you want to make a game properly with deep lore, fun and challenging gameplay and interdependent classes :)
As they say, good things come to those who wait :D But why does that have to be so hard! :P hehe
Exactly! :)
I enjoyed reading the newsletter. I think I speak for a lot off people when I say we worry about not seeing game updates because we are all looking forward to the game. In the MMO world there has been alot of dissapointments over the last few years, Next and World of darkness both tanking comes to mind for me immediatley and we don't want to see that happen to Pantheon. Understand we worry because we care xD.
Great read, I enjoy any little tidbit of information that you guys can give us.
/step onto soapbox
I was not going to orginally weigh in on the undertone of the replies to this months newsletter, but I do think most of us can relate in some way. Yes, most of us did donate to this project myself included, but, I did that knowing that I was just attempt to help an idea and a cause. I do not feel that in anyway my contribution entitles me to any additional anything from the VR team, it was a donation, not a donation with exceptions. Now, with that being said, I am also not trying to slam the people were are a little dissapointed by the lack of new content in the newsletter. I think we are all the little dissapointed that we are not seeing new information, screen shots, videos on a continuous basis. But, lets be honest, with as excited as most of us are about the idea behind Pantheon, no amount of information would be enough for us at the moment.
From the outside looking in, its hard to imagine why someone cant just give us a little more in the way for screen shots, videos or even just written information about the state of the game. But, I can honestly say as a developer, anything that causes me to divert my attention from the work at hand, even for a moment, is a huge loss of productivity from having change direction and lose focus. Now if you consider this project specifically, with a small team, all of which are wearing mainy hats, these changes in direction are even worse on productivity.
/step off soapbox
...this MMORPG making process takes a long time (usually ~5 years)...
Just out of curiousity, where would you say the project is in this estimated 5 year cycle? I mean with the early on issues and such, does that mean we are in year 1 or are we more like year 2-3? Im going to keep following the project regardless, but I would like an idea (ballpark) where this project is in the very roughly estimated ~5 years? Not only for my own sanity, but I have been talking about the game to friends who are now also very interested in the game.
Riply said:Great read, I enjoy any little tidbit of information that you guys can give us.
/step onto soapbox
I was not going to orginally weigh in on the undertone of the replies to this months newsletter, but I do think most of us can relate in some way. Yes, most of us did donate to this project myself included, but, I did that knowing that I was just attempt to help an idea and a cause. I do not feel that in anyway my contribution entitles me to any additional anything from the VR team, it was a donation, not a donation with exceptions. Now, with that being said, I am also not trying to slam the people were are a little dissapointed by the lack of new content in the newsletter. I think we are all the little dissapointed that we are not seeing new information, screen shots, videos on a continuous basis. But, lets be honest, with as excited as most of us are about the idea behind Pantheon, no amount of information would be enough for us at the moment.
From the outside looking in, its hard to imagine why someone cant just give us a little more in the way for screen shots, videos or even just written information about the state of the game. But, I can honestly say as a developer, anything that causes me to divert my attention from the work at hand, even for a moment, is a huge loss of productivity from having change direction and lose focus. Now if you consider this project specifically, with a small team, all of which are wearing mainy hats, these changes in direction are even worse on productivity.
/step off soapbox
...this MMORPG making process takes a long time (usually ~5 years)...
Just out of curiousity, where would you say the project is in this estimated 5 year cycle? I mean with the early on issues and such, does that mean we are in year 1 or are we more like year 2-3? Im going to keep following the project regardless, but I would like an idea (ballpark) where this project is in the very roughly estimated ~5 years? Not only for my own sanity, but I have been talking about the game to friends who are now also very interested in the game.
That is understandable but to be fair, I release a new screenshot every week that I take myself in-game with no filters, just a raw in-game screenshot, once we release a new area there will be plenty more screenshots and we plan on doing a stream in the not too distant future plus we have some other cool things planned but for the time being, we are working hard to make those things happen so we have new things to show off, if we don;t keep our heads down working away those things will end up being delayed which is, unfortunately, a symptom of having a 15 person team that is seeking investors.
It is impossible to give an estimate on that scale with so many variables, absolutely impossible and the only thing that can speed the development up is more developers in some key areas like programming, world building, art etc. but I can say it won't take us 5 years thanks to Unity, we started 3 years ago, scrapped the game and started fresh after the first year and are now over 2 years into development and have come a long way as you can see by our latest showing at Unite plus our last stream.
Typically a game development company would work on a game behind the scenes for ~5 years then a few months before launching a beta or the full game ramp up a marketing hype train, we are tasked with trying to crowdfund the game, failing (Kickstarter) and now stuck developing the game with the doors and windows open for everyone to peer in with knowledge of the game being actively made, which is tough for you folks who have helped us out by donating money via pledges and subs and tough for us because we are passionately working our butts off to make a game that we want to play with you but we go through some slow periods where updates just aren't possible.
Rock and a hard place for sure, but we have every intention of developing a kick ass game that we see through to the end while giving it the best launch possible and then supporting it and expanding it as time goes on to make it into the game we all want to play, it just takes time and patience, unfortunately. :)
Bazgrim said:I think it's important to realize the difference between being disappointed and being demanding.
I think you hit the nail on the head.
This is just how some people are feeling about the newsletters, plain and simple. Power to them for coming forward about how they feel knowing they will be scrutinized about it. I am glad people are coming forward about how they feel; much better than them silently losing interest and dissociating from the game. Just realize that if some of us pledges feel this way, then be certain that those potential pledges and those watching the game with interest are also feeling similarly.
edit: typo
I'm the marketing manager for a software company that's a sales and development partner for a major business software publisher. We have a vertical product that were're currently rewriting to move from a VB-based platform to an HTML5-based platform. Several of our customers are waiting to move to the HTML5-based system until this vertical product is ready, and we're in Year 2 of development. The funny thing about creating/updating software is that you don't always have something forward-facing (read: what the end-user sees) to show off to the public. A lot of what's going on is back-end coding that forms the basis of the entire structure of the software. But even though you spent months of hard work, you don't end up with anything that looks different from the last time you gave a presentation to your customer base. The same thing goes for designing games. Just because we're not getting new screen shots, videos or live streams doesn't mean they haven't done any work since the last time they showed us the game. I'd rather have them taking care of the important things -- the game's foundation and back-end coding -- instead of rushing to get a beautiful-looking piece of vapor-ware out to us.
Lghtngfan said:A lot of what's going on is back-end coding that forms the basis of the entire structure of the software. But even though you spent months of hard work, you don't end up with anything that looks different from the last time you gave a presentation to your customer base. The same thing goes for designing games. Just because we're not getting new screen shots, videos or live streams doesn't mean they haven't done any work since the last time they showed us the game.
Very well said, I just spent the last 3 months working on an entirely new API layer for one of our main software packages and have absolutely nothing that I could show a customer.....short of "Trust me, it was alot of work and it is a better product now"....
Thank you for the fantastic job you guys have been doing !!! Your hard work and dedication has really helped us out and brought us all into the game step by step *Thank you for bringing me into your world*.I sincerely appreciate it .I look forward to anything you throw at us,something is better than nothing :0)
kiwenzel said:Bazgrim said:I think it's important to realize the difference between being disappointed and being demanding.
I think you hit the nail on the head.
This is just how some people are feeling about the newsletters, plain and simple. Power to them for coming forward about how they feel knowing they will be scrutinized about it. I am glad people are coming forward about how they feel; much better than them silently losing interest and dissociating from the game. Just realize that if some of us pledges feel this way, then be certain that those potential pledges and those watching the game with interest are also feeling similarly.
edit: typo
It is very important as they are two completely separate things and please don't think I am condemning those people, I understand what they are going through as I myself have gone through it with other games but I wanted to explain why it is taking so long, I think information helps alleviate problems like this and helps people understand, even though it still sucks, they feel better knowing why. :)
Lghtngfan said:I'm the marketing manager for a software company that's a sales and development partner for a major business software publisher. We have a vertical product that were're currently rewriting to move from a VB-based platform to an HTML5-based platform. Several of our customers are waiting to move to the HTML5-based system until this vertical product is ready, and we're in Year 2 of development. The funny thing about creating/updating software is that you don't always have something forward-facing (read: what the end-user sees) to show off to the public. A lot of what's going on is back-end coding that forms the basis of the entire structure of the software. But even though you spent months of hard work, you don't end up with anything that looks different from the last time you gave a presentation to your customer base. The same thing goes for designing games. Just because we're not getting new screen shots, videos or live streams doesn't mean they haven't done any work since the last time they showed us the game. I'd rather have them taking care of the important things -- the game's foundation and back-end coding -- instead of rushing to get a beautiful-looking piece of vapor-ware out to us.
That is a great comparison and explanation, thank you! :)
Riply said:Lghtngfan said:A lot of what's going on is back-end coding that forms the basis of the entire structure of the software. But even though you spent months of hard work, you don't end up with anything that looks different from the last time you gave a presentation to your customer base. The same thing goes for designing games. Just because we're not getting new screen shots, videos or live streams doesn't mean they haven't done any work since the last time they showed us the game.
Very well said, I just spent the last 3 months working on an entirely new API layer for one of our main software packages and have absolutely nothing that I could show a customer.....short of "Trust me, it was alot of work and it is a better product now"....
Spot on, which is very tough for us and the customers, we want to show them our hard work and they want to see it, but in a lot of cases there is nothing there to show and taking dev's away from their roles to try and explain it briefly in laymen terms for updates would, unfortunately, take them away from valuable development time.
Alix said:Thank you for the fantastic job you guys have been doing !!! Your hard work and dedication has really helped us out and brought us all into the game step by step *Thank you for bringing me into your world*.I sincerely appreciate it .I look forward to anything you throw at us,something is better than nothing :0)
You're very welcome Alix, the team really appreciates kind words like this, so thank you! :)
Talvaris said:Kilsin said:...this MMORPG making process takes a long time (usually ~5 years)...
Look on the bright side, im think they are going into their 3rd year of developement.
