I have not had the pleasure, but several friends have. The stories they tell always make me smile, a great time was had by all. Talk about encouraging community.
As for Fantheon, yes please. I promise to attend the first one held "down under" - as long as Kilsin spawns with some swag to loot.
I never have for a game, but I love the atmosphere of GenCon, PAX, etc. and I have a feeling it would be similar. Just a bunch of gamers bonding over similar interests. With such a community-centric game, it seems like Pantheon should absolutely do something like that. I would travel a long way to go to it, but Eastern US would be best :)
Kumu said:I have not had the pleasure, but several friends have. The stories they tell always make me smile, a great time was had by all. Talk about encouraging community.
As for Fantheon, yes please. I promise to attend the first one held "down under" - as long as Kilsin spawns with some swag to loot.
I would love to my friend, I have never been to one so I would be excited to have a Pantheon event as my first so I can meet as many of you as possible! I am not sure they would have one in Australia but I would be making plans to go if they did, otherwise, it will be a long swim to come over and visit but worth it :D
I have attended several in my time. Fan events are a great excuse to get some face to face time with guild mates as well as an opportunity to mingle with other like minded friends. Panels and Q&A sessions are always entertaining and informative providing direct feedback to the dev team in a way you can't get from forums and polls. I am also addicted to swag and there is usually a lot of unique real-life and in-game merch at these functions. Although I am not sure how the pantheon community would react to the potential availability and exclusivity of such items.
I am on board for the idea of a VR fan event and hope that the success of Pantheon warrants further discussion sooner rather than later. In the meantime a VR presence at Cons would help connect with the community and spread the word.
Kilsin said:Have you ever attended a Fan Event for a game and would you like to see us host one for Pantheon at some stage? #Fantheon #PRF
I have attended a number of them. The sad truth, though is that I'm indifferent if you hold any. Not because I wouldn't go if I could, but because they're always in either California or New York. Both are out of my price range as an East Coast resident.
If there were other choices, like say, Boston, then I'd be all over that like hugs on babies.
Azotate said:I am also addicted to swag and there is usually a lot of unique real-life and in-game merch at these functions. Although I am not sure how the pantheon community would react to the potential availability and exclusivity of such items.
Those sorts of items are almost always cosmetic, so I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem. I'd be all for it.
Amris said:I have attended a number of them. The sad truth, though is that I'm indifferent if you hold any. Not because I wouldn't go if I could, but because they're always in either California or New York. Both are out of my price range as an East Coast resident.
If there were other choices, like say, Boston, then I'd be all over that like hugs on babies.
New York is not that far from Boston haha. But from what I can tell, Boston is usually more gamer-friendly than NYC anyway. I'd be thrilled if it was anywhere in the Northeast, although California is pretty likely and I've never been there so at least it would be an excuse to visit the West Coast for once.
I have not done one in the past. I was holding out for the year of EQNext release.
But, the wife and I are looking for an excuse to go to Vegas. We would definitely book a trip for a Pantheon event.
I know others may prefer somewhere in the NE US, but you cannot beat Vegas for price of the hotels, event space, and flights.
Kumu said:Amris - there are many of us Panthanatics in the New England area. If they do hold one in NYC it sounds like a road trip is in order. VW micro-bus anyone?
I would totally love a road trip, lol. Still gotta pay for hotels, though. :( NYC food is expensive enough to cost me a week's pay in two meals, too, lol. (Okay, I'm mildly exaggerating...)
Bazgrim said:New York is not that far from Boston haha. But from what I can tell, Boston is usually more gamer-friendly than NYC anyway. I'd be thrilled if it was anywhere in the Northeast, although California is pretty likely and I've never been there so at least it would be an excuse to visit the West Coast for once.
Boston is far cheaper, easier to navigate (which says a lot--it's dreadful), and generally less unfriendly (which again says a lot). NYC is beyond outrageous in all pricing.
I was invited to attend a community summit hosted by Sony for EQ2. The event was a great social experience, but it wasn't productive, strictly speaking.
We got almost no time with the developers discussing balance issues that were technical, detailed, and gathered from the community. Each attendee was a class rep. The class discussions were .. less than an hour, and were dominated by personality, rather than merit, equality or fairness.
As in, the melee class reps felt it was more important to talk about how end game raiding needed to be made more difficult, while others of us had a list of 10 community questions were never had time to ask.
The class reps went back to the community after the event and had almost nothing to report or offer in any tangible or meaningful way. That was very disappointing.
Having a visionary-realms-hosted class rep google hangout quarterly, online, would be far more useful, with a moderator, strict agenda, and minutes, with the meetings recorded and made public after the fact for the community at large to review. I'd like to see that kind of community interaction for Pantheon. And exclusively NOT only uber guilds and end-game raiding discussed. If Visionary Realms wants to have those meetings with those guilds directly? Great. Keep that separate from the public discussions.
During the development of SOTA, the developers were having a hard time gaining the trust of the community. So they assigned one member of the community to gather up to three questions per poster in a thread, and those questions would be voted on (via likes) and the top 10 were sent to the dev team for answers, weekly.
Everything worked except one thing: The developers refused to answer some (perfectly valid) questions. Some weeks, half the questions went un-answered, because the devs reserved the right not to answer community questions. As soon as it was discovered, publicly, that the developers had this caveat in the process, it was abandoned by the community. Again, great in theory, terrible implementation. So much wasted effort & wasted potential.
IMO, there's nothing wrong with community/fan events, roundtable discussions, weekly questions, and similar ideas but if they're not going to accomplish some kind of iterative process goal? I wouldn't personally attend or participate. I get enough social content IRL and via the game, I don't need to travel just to meet other Pantheon players.
Put simply? If fan/dev interaction is two way? Go for it. If it's actually only one way, and it's all just smoke & mirrors placation? Don't bother.
Kilsin said:Have you ever attended a Fan Event for a game and would you like to see us host one for Pantheon at some stage? #Fantheon #PRF
I attend every fanfest that I can for the games I play and I must say that CCP Games, the developers of EVE Online, throw the absolute best FanFest I have ever attended. It just isn't CCP that puts forth efforts to make the FanFest a great even, but the city of Reyjkavik too comes out in support of the event.
Would definitely do a fan thing, especially if my current pantheon guild at that time would be willing to go.
I'm not very interested in travelling across the country or for that matter out of the country, so I'm wondering if it would be workable to have a few of them. For instance a US east coast Fan Event, and west coast (and mid US if possible of course), hosted in part by players and assisted by WRI? One in Canada (Toronto would be ideal imo, and if possible Vancouver area would be good as well if a west coast get together is an option), EU, AUS and everywhere with enough of a following etc
Portalgun said:Would definitely do a fan thing, especially if my current pantheon guild at that time would be willing to go.
I'm not very interested in travelling across the country or for that matter out of the country, so I'm wondering if it would be workable to have a few of them. For instance a US east coast Fan Event, and west coast (and mid US if possible of course), hosted in part by players and assisted by WRI? One in Canada (Toronto would be ideal imo, and if possible Vancouver area would be good as well if a west coast get together is an option), EU, AUS and everywhere with enough of a following etc
They could just go on tour! :P
I agree there should be more than one. Maybe just an East Coast US and a West Coast US. But the amount will largely depend on how big (popular) the game actually is. Even one Fantheon would no doubt be a big investment on their part, so multiples would have to be very worth it to them. If there are millions upon millions of people flocking to them, then perhaps. But we won't know until the game actually launches.