bobwinner said:I'd rather wait 2-3 more years and play an amazing, immersive, complete game, with tons of people sticking on it, rather than a rushed, incomplete game, and everyone leaves it after two months.
I would strongly disagree. Turning Pantheon into Star Citizen, the game that will never launch because it's just not ready for prime time would be irresponsible. SC started with a $150M war chest 4 years ago and is asking for more money? That is massive mismanagement and possible criminal performance if we got to see more details on where that money has been spent.
VR had a schedule and is quite a bit off their original timeline.
It is fully understandable for questions to be asked regarding why development is essentially far behind schedule, and what is being done to change that. Spending a year in a pre-alpha, another year in alpha, and another in beta? Or just take as long as it takes? That would be the SC way.
I don't think you can compare Pantheon and Star Citizen.
Pantheon is going to be a mmorpg, and a rather classic one (I mean they don't need to re-invent the wheel), with one single gameplay (sure every class will get its own gameplay, but all based on the same engine, you get the point), while Star Citizen is developping multiple very different gameplays (spaceship fight gameplay, first-person shoot gameplay, etc).
I'm not saying developping a single gameplay is easy, but developping multiple gameplays certainly takes more work and time.
Anyways, my main point when I said I'd rather wait, was content.
If Pantheon releases too fast, and players reach max level and clear content too fast, due to the lack of content, due to a "too-early" release, that won't do any good to neither us players, nor to VR.
Having content is obviously important, but more important is having a relatively stable game, good starter areas to make the game attractive to people trying it, and fairly fleshed out classes and game mechanics.
If Pantheon takes too long they run out of money or we all give up and leave, and the game dies.
If Pantheon is released too early in an unstable, buggy version with starter areas that aren't appealing, all but the most dedicated will leave, and the game dies.
If Pantheon is released in a reasonable timeframe (note I'm not even hinting at what I consider reasonable) in very good shape but with very little completed at maximum level, most of us are happy, people trying the game are impressed and they have months and months to add content.
Granted I agree with bobwinner than having content is better than not having content but I feel strongly that quality of the areas players will see over the first month of gameplay, stability of the game, and a release before money runs out are *far* more important than having everything they want done before the first expansion ready at release.
bobwinner said:"When it is ready"™
is fine enough for me.
I'd rather wait 2-3 more years and play an amazing, immersive, complete game, with tons of people sticking on it, rather than a rushed, incomplete game, and everyone leaves it after two months.
This response sort of implies that more time equals more quality or a better game but I don't think it's that simple. In the simplest of terms it's best not to release an unfinished buggy game but just adding more and more time doesn't necessarily make things better. The longer the game is in development the more funds are required and the less confidence players and investors will have in the project reaching a successful release. The longer it goes on the more chances for unfortunate things to happen such as talent leaving the team or another similar game releasing to steal it's thunder or any number of other unforseen problems.
I'm all for releasing when it's ready and delays or setbacks are expected. However, when you start getting years off track it starts to make people wonder what is going on behind the scenes. Vision is important and this team has it in spades but project management, discipline, business stategy and execution are just as important if not more for a project as daunting as an MMO. It's easy to see where the team vision is and we are all behind that but those other elements are not as easy for us to guage. Let's hope those other elements are not seriously lacking.
zewtastic said:Bottom line for me, I expect issues, problems, delays, disappointments. But I also know I played EQ1 and Vanguard more than any other games of it's nature. And I found all other knockoffs (WoW) lacking. So for me there is no alternative.
Absolutely. Game development is a messy, imperfect thing. I'd rather they get it right and take some time. Theories on paper rarely go as planned in game development, they need to be tested to be proven.
I haven't been this excited for an MMO in years and I can wait.
Bronsun said:
zewtastic said:Bottom line for me, I expect issues, problems, delays, disappointments. But I also know I played EQ1 and Vanguard more than any other games of it's nature. And I found all other knockoffs (WoW) lacking. So for me there is no alternative.
Absolutely. Game development is a messy, imperfect thing. I'd rather they get it right and take some time. Theories on paper rarely go as planned in game development, they need to be tested to be proven.
I haven't been this excited for an MMO in years and I can wait.
I was excited, too. Like 3 years ago. With a release still years away it's hard to remain excited for such a long period of time. I'm still interested for sure but I would say my excitement has diminished. Maybe if Alpha ever gets started and I can see something tangible that will get me excited all over again or maybe it will diminish my excitment more. Hard to say at this point.
bobwinner said:I don't think you can compare Pantheon and Star Citizen.
Pantheon is going to be a mmorpg, and a rather classic one (I mean they don't need to re-invent the wheel), with one single gameplay (sure every class will get its own gameplay, but all based on the same engine, you get the point), while Star Citizen is developping multiple very different gameplays (spaceship fight gameplay, first-person shoot gameplay, etc).
I'm not saying developping a single gameplay is easy, but developping multiple gameplays certainly takes more work and time.
Anyways, my main point when I said I'd rather wait, was content.
If Pantheon releases too fast, and players reach max level and clear content too fast, due to the lack of content, due to a "too-early" release, that won't do any good to neither us players, nor to VR.
Yes, a comparison between SC and Pantheon would be extreme, we hope.
But giving a studio a blank check and unlimited time without controls and oversight to produce something is never a smart move.
A project will always have a timelines and milestones, and when they are not met there is usually a reason.
Given that a number of the people involved in Pantheon have past experience in making a MMO and so many tools and tech are vastly improved from what existed in the past, I am somewhat curious why the project is now years behind their original schedule. Is it many reasons, one big reason? We really have not heard. I am sure the major investors are being informed. I am cautiously optimistic. I have to be, nothing I can do to change anything.
I cannot be the only person that has Pantheon pencilled in for a late 2020 release? This is not a date I plucked from the ether, it's a date I arrived at from comments in interviews and streams.
No disrespect but if you really believe a game as complex as Pantheon, a game that is still in its pre-alpha state will see the light of day in 2019 you are either naive or misrepresenting your gaming experience.
Take EQ for example which seems the default comparison (unfairly in my opinion). It was in development for 3 years(ish) fast forward to now. We don't want an EQ reskin, we want a game of far more complexity, and more depth (plus a lot of other things). Now to me, it's common sense to expect a 6-year development cycle for MMOs. Add to this the start Pantheon had and I am amazed we are this far along.
Yes, the tools and tech are vastly improved but also players vastly expect more. As an example, Skyrim still took 4 years even though it was using previous "tools and tech" from Oblivion and 2 expansions.
The question I guess is do you want a bottle of Old Rip Van Winkle 25-year old bourbon or a bottle of Jim Beam?
We all want this to be an outstanding MMO, an MMO we want to be able to play for years. So let's sit back and let the VR team do their thing. Give them space and time to produce the game we ALL want.
Jazznblues said:I cannot be the only person that has Pantheon pencilled in for a late 2020 release?
I kind of think so too, but my gut wants to put on rosey glasses and look at the following:
They sort of announced that pre-alpha stage 3 will be starting soon *rose tint* they mentioned the success to EQ was having a long beta, like a year, I am assuming the alpha was much shorter. Currently they have a PRE-alpha for almost a year! with approx 800 motivated testers, this can only mean much feedback is available to improve the core game. Pre-alpha 3 includes character creation which is cool.
If pre-alpha is a year ending in 2018. that could mean Alpha would start in 2019 (or a bit earlier) *rose tint* Alpha means thousands more testers- also highly motivated- if there is even a full year of alpha that can only mean more ways to polish, if the dev teams can keep up. Maybe alpha will be shorter? which would mean Beta might be early or before 2020
EQBallzz said:I was excited, too. Like 3 years ago. With a release still years away it's hard to remain excited for such a long period of time. I'm still interested for sure but I would say my excitement has diminished. Maybe if Alpha ever gets started and I can see something tangible that will get me excited all over again or maybe it will diminish my excitment more. Hard to say at this point.
I haven't been around that long. Only discovered the project around three weeks ago, but from what I have read they do have more funding and have grown in the last year. That can often, but not always push production into overdrive. Of course this is determined on how many people they hired. Best case scenario they will be into Alpha by this December in time for more people to enter the game over the holidays unless pre-Alpha 2 lasts another three more months which means they could be into pre-Alpha 3 by the holidays. Alpha next year and then possibly Beta by Q3 of next year. Fingers crossed.
Its all anyones guess. So many factors. How big is the team? This is a big one and determines a lot in terms of production. How much of design is left to implement? how much art is left to finish then polish? Testing collision everywhere in the world so people don't fall through the world, setting up all the quests, npc pathing, blah, blah, blah, etc, etc, etc. If they have a lot of the functionality in place it can go more smoothly, but then their are always things you didn't see. I'm only speaking on my own experiences.
Jazznblues said:I cannot be the only person that has Pantheon pencilled in for a late 2020 release? This is not a date I plucked from the ether, it's a date I arrived at from comments in interviews and streams.
No disrespect but if you really believe a game as complex as Pantheon, a game that is still in its pre-alpha state will see the light of day in 2019 you are either naive or misrepresenting your gaming experience.
Take EQ for example which seems the default comparison (unfairly in my opinion). It was in development for 3 years(ish) fast forward to now. We don't want an EQ reskin, we want a game of far more complexity, and more depth (plus a lot of other things). Now to me, it's common sense to expect a 6-year development cycle for MMOs. Add to this the start Pantheon had and I am amazed we are this far along.
Yes, the tools and tech are vastly improved but also players vastly expect more. As an example, Skyrim still took 4 years even though it was using previous "tools and tech" from Oblivion and 2 expansions.
The question I guess is do you want a bottle of Old Rip Van Winkle 25-year old bourbon or a bottle of Jim Beam?
We all want this to be an outstanding MMO, an MMO we want to be able to play for years. So let's sit back and let the VR team do their thing. Give them space and time to produce the game we ALL want.
So much of what you have said is either completely wrong, or just pure unsubstantiated rambling. Really where do you get this stuff? Another person willing to close their eyes and endlessly wait without wanting to know why reality has not matched the stated timelines.
The whole point of this thread largely was about how the time-frame slipped, by years, yet you choose to say "hey it's 2020". Sure if you just look at what they are saying now, but that changed from what they said 3 years ago. And will it change again in another year or two?
MMO's have not commonly taken 6 years to develop. Not sure where you get that from.
Skyrim, Oblivion, not MMO's.
If you study carefully the many dozens of MMOs made over the last 20 years, I am fairly sure 6 years would be nothing close to "common".
No one is expecting an EQ1 reskin. If anything, we know that Vanguard was the direct descendant of EQ1 and Pantheon will be an amalgam of both. It's more about game-play functionality and mechanics than re-skin anyways. Not sure why anyone would say re-skin. Nothing we have seen in streams looks visually anything like EQ1 of 1998.
Players expect more? You say that but then do not explain it. What do you mean by more? More what? I have seen nothing that gives that statement any validity.
The biggest time-consumer for MMOs typically is world and content building. And that can be directly impacted by the number of butts in seats making content. The more bodies making content, the quicker the world gets made. The less butts in seats, and the process could take 10 years or result in a much smaller world. Most triple-A MMOs are made with 100's of people working on them, Pantheon is not. This is partially because the tools are so much better these days partially. But tools can only do so much. There is no tool that will design an amazing dungeon experience - yet.
We are 3+ years in on Pantheon and just now seeing some of the core classes? That is what seems very odd. Arguably you could create a world without any classes, but that is not what has happened.
We are at 3+ years, have seen possibly eight zones and only maybe three in large detail, a few classes with fairly limited functionality.
If VR had hundreds of bodies working on Pantheon I would not be as curious, but with dozens of people I am curious about their timeline.
Let's try to disagree where we must but without being disagreeable.
((No disrespect but if you really believe a game as complex as Pantheon, a game that is still in its pre-alpha state will see the light of day in 2019 you are either naive or misrepresenting your gaming experience.))
Prefacing a comment along the lines of "you are a liar or an idiot" with "no disrepect" doesn't make it any nicer.
((completely wrong, or just pure unsubstantiated rambling. Really where do you get this stuff? ))
Not much nicer though quite understandable given the quote you were commenting on.
@dorotea
People simply making stuff out of whole cloth should never be acceptable. (I'm going to leave RL glaring example un-stated)
People making blanket statements as if they are fact, without supporting or substantiating said statements. Pulling false statistics out of thin air.
Those types of posts should always be open to criticism. And largely we see the same posters repeating the same made up crap over and over.
When I make inaccurate statements I expect to be called out (and I have been), and I will re-check my facts.
Players in the actual game will be much more toxic than anything we have seen in these forums.
I have no problems with criticisms and attacks on what people *say* even if strongly worded. Every month or two I get an odd urge to remind us that we are all supporters of Pantheon and to try and limit attacks to what is said, not to the person saying it. I'll try and fight it down for the next few months.
Yes indeed these forums are exceptionally polite compared to others, and compared to chat in any MMO.
zewtastic said:Given that a number of the people involved in Pantheon have past experience in making a MMO and so many tools and tech are vastly improved from what existed in the past, I am somewhat curious why the project is now years behind their original schedule. Is it many reasons, one big reason? We really have not heard. I am sure the major investors are being informed. I am cautiously optimistic. I have to be, nothing I can do to change anything.
I don't see Pantheon as being "behind" schedule at all. I would say most MMOs are 5-8 years average for development time and sometimes longer.
Game development, much like any software project takes time. You have to plan things out, schedule hopeful milestones, ramp up personal, etc etc. Say you have a team of 80 working on the project, not everyone does the samething. An artist may finish several art assets quickly, but then it has to go to a technical artist to perhaps add coding for say a chest to be open/close and be locked, have an access list, then that access list must wait for the DB person to create the database that holds the threads of info for that. It is never as quick as creating something and sticking it into a pretty picture like a colorform.
On top of that, with so many poor quality games being released into the market on a regular bases from Indie to AAA shops, waiting for that one quality gem you can throw yourself into for years (thinking back to my EQ days :) ) is worth any amount of waiting.
I personally think this game is actually moving at a quick pace, but I watch a lot of development going on out there. Just take a few examples and look at time frames and you will see that VR is doing well with the scope and time frame.
Thanks,
Barnum
Porygon said:zewtastic said:Opinion of me aside. Since you clearly have alot of knowledge regarding the development of games...
Assuming that alpha launches this December...
What, given what you already know, would he your estimate of release? Assuming you were forced to guess?
My opinion?
It would still be a wild guess. There are so many issues that can derail the best plans. Personnel problems, not having the right skill sets, technical bugs that cripple progress, needed tools that take longer than expected to make. Too few people juggling too many issues. And in a big project like an MMO, all of these can happen.
The problem with setting timelines is either you have no idea and start with some wildly optimistic quick turnaround, or you set it too long and workers slow down to fit that expected date. It's like waiting until the last night before the big test to start studying, or to write that paper, when you had 2 weeks.
I think they originally wildly over-estimated the project, gave fanciful projections of turnarounds. Then realizing they needed a lot more time and probably a lot more skill-sets they were missing and adjusted the timeline to be much farther out than they thought they might really need. Only to actually realize their 2nd over-estimation might be the most accurate.
Brad has learned, and I heard him mention this in streams at least once, that you try to never over-promise. Because taking things back is a lot harder than adding things later. Harder in the sense it is very bad PR, makes you look stupid and is generally doubling your work. I think they have a hard lock now on any kind of over-promising, from any of the team members as it can come back to bite them.
The pre-alpha is the hardest to gauge time-wise. You have to get your mechanics and basic functionality down and working. This includes your classes and at least a good set of their abilities and combat mechanics. Pre-alpha is where you should see any major issues with your netcode, your DBs, memcache, security, authentication. You do not want any of those areas to be major issues in alpha/beta. Pre-alpha is where the hard problems get fixed, or code is backed out and a different branch or tech is switched over to for more testing. A seemingly simple thing like switching Unity releases can have huge impacts and create weeks and months of work.
Alpha and Beta are more for tuning, balance, overall functional testing, misc bug identification, and largely content creation. Zones, lands, npcs, quests, itemization, etc have to be made. Takes a lot of work for a small team.
And Beta more for load and larger scale tech balancing.
I will say that if pre-alpha runs into 2019, then they did run into some "unplanned" issues, probably more technical than not and they had to back up and switch a path to something different.
If Alpha start before Oct/Nov/Dec 2018, that is a better sign.
The single biggest issue may prove to be the non-instanced, persistent world. This is tech that essentially no other MMOs have taken on in along time. It brings unique technical challenges with it. Most MMOs just use instancing, P2P, or channels, which while technically is pushing the easy button, kills the basic immersion philosophy behind the MMO and is not the concept behind Pantheon.
If they get out of pre-alpha by early 2019, then they could push something out in 2020. It really just comes down to how much content they feel comfortable releasing originally and where their plans for progression are. But it will be kind of a unique situation though, since most of the people that want to play badly, have already invested and will be playing in Alpha/Beta.
The last two major projects Brad created he lost control of and they went on to be someone elses.
Pantheon may be Brads retirement plan. He wants to build, release and continue to develop Pantheon for many years it seems. Given that thinking, he knows extra planning and work spent now, can help diminish troubles down the road and make for more flexibility and stability.
Barnum said:zewtastic said:Given that a number of the people involved in Pantheon have past experience in making a MMO and so many tools and tech are vastly improved from what existed in the past, I am somewhat curious why the project is now years behind their original schedule. Is it many reasons, one big reason? We really have not heard. I am sure the major investors are being informed. I am cautiously optimistic. I have to be, nothing I can do to change anything.
I don't see Pantheon as being "behind" schedule at all. I would say most MMOs are 5-8 years average for development time and sometimes longer.
Game development, much like any software project takes time. You have to plan things out, schedule hopeful milestones, ramp up personal, etc etc. Say you have a team of 80 working on the project, not everyone does the samething. An artist may finish several art assets quickly, but then it has to go to a technical artist to perhaps add coding for say a chest to be open/close and be locked, have an access list, then that access list must wait for the DB person to create the database that holds the threads of info for that. It is never as quick as creating something and sticking it into a pretty picture like a colorform
On top of that, with so many poor quality games being released into the market on a regular bases from Indie to AAA shops, waiting for that one quality gem you can throw yourself into for years (thinking back to my EQ days :) ) is worth any amount of waiting.
I personally think this game is actually moving at a quick pace, but I watch a lot of development going on out there. Just take a few examples and look at time frames and you will see that VR is doing well with the scope and time frame.
Thanks,
Barnum
MMOs are not usually done by small studios. And historically they have not taken 5-8 years. Typically we are talking about hundreds of people working on an MMO, at least at some stages.
But simply put, if I were to tell you 3+ years ago, when Pantheon was first birthed that you would not see any information on a Cleric, Druid or Shaman until now, how excited would you be about the progress?
As a caveat I would just say, although most MMOs have not taken 5-8 years, most of them should have. As it seems they all launch too early and too broken and usually do not get "right" for another year or two after initial release.
zewtastic said:
MMOs are not usually done by small studios. And historically they have not taken 5-8 years. Typically we are talking about hundreds of people working on an MMO, at least at some stages.
But simply put, if I were to tell you 3+ years ago, when Pantheon was first birthed that you would not see any information on a Cleric, Druid or Shaman until now, how excited would you be about the progress?
As a caveat I would just say, although most MMOs have not taken 5-8 years, most of them should have. As it seems they all launch too early and too broken and usually do not get "right" for another year or two after initial release.
Well, we can agree to disagree on the time frame if you like.
But to answer you question on the 3+ years to hear about the healing classes, I would have no issue with that, but like I said...I have been following development of games for a very long time. I also have been following a lot of the Devs that are part of the VR team before VR was ever formed, so I trust them to get things done when they get things done.
Thanks,
Barnum
Barnum said:zewtastic said:
MMOs are not usually done by small studios. And historically they have not taken 5-8 years. Typically we are talking about hundreds of people working on an MMO, at least at some stages.
But simply put, if I were to tell you 3+ years ago, when Pantheon was first birthed that you would not see any information on a Cleric, Druid or Shaman until now, how excited would you be about the progress?
As a caveat I would just say, although most MMOs have not taken 5-8 years, most of them should have. As it seems they all launch too early and too broken and usually do not get "right" for another year or two after initial release.
Well, we can agree to disagree on the time frame if you like.
But to answer you question on the 3+ years to hear about the healing classes, I would have no issue with that, but like I said...I have been following development of games for a very long time. I also have been following a lot of the Devs that are part of the VR team before VR was ever formed, so I trust them to get things done when they get things done.
Thanks,
Barnum
Unfortunately for me, I have been around and gaming (and not as a kid) since the first online MMO went alpha (UO in 96), well even before that I guess. So yeah I am old. I have been a deeply involved with gaming for obviously decades now, with a penchant for MMOs. And I have played a great many of them, if some only for a few weeks or so. :). And on top of a long career in IT I ended up spending many years working in the game industry. Worked with, met, chatted with many MMO creaters, workers, etc. People that worked on games I loved and some I hated.
So you are going to have to elaborate on how you have such great insight purely by "following development of games", whatever that means. So which Devs' are you referring to? Brad? Well everyone knows Brad. The good, and the bad. Who else? Cause I cannot seem to find any history on Chris Perkins at all, aside from some past involved with making music. And as Pantheon Creative Director? I would think there would be more.
((Cause I cannot seem to find any history on Chris Perkins at all, aside from some past involved with making music. And as Pantheon Creative Director? I would think there would be more.))
A cursory search found that he has been involved with dungeons and dragons and neverwinter, including the development of various campaigns. Whether any of this was as a paid job as distinct from a very active fan/player I don't know.
dorotea said:((Cause I cannot seem to find any history on Chris Perkins at all, aside from some past involved with making music. And as Pantheon Creative Director? I would think there would be more.))
A cursory search found that he has been involved with dungeons and dragons and neverwinter, including the development of various campaigns. Whether any of this was as a paid job as distinct from a very active fan/player I don't know.
Yes, I had found that information previously as well, the D&D stuff.
But it appears to be a completely different Perkins.
zewtastic said:So you are going to have to elaborate on how you have such great insight purely by "following development of games", whatever that means. So which Devs' are you referring to? Brad? Well everyone knows Brad. The good, and the bad. Who else? Cause I cannot seem to find any history on Chris Perkins at all, aside from some past involved with making music. And as Pantheon Creative Director? I would think there would be more.
Like I said above, going to have to Agree to Disagree. We all have an opinion on how we think things are going. I feel they are going at a great pace and I am excited for the upcoming Alpha when it begins. I believe that Pantheon will be a great success for the VR team. This game will give many of us old timers a new place to play and introduce to new people some game loops you don't see much in gaming today. I see a blending of the best of older style gaming with new and innovative ideas.
Thanks,
Barnum