July 2022 Producer’s Letter

Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen has been funded to date largely through crowdfunding. Many of you have pledged, and for that we are grateful. Your pledges have gone directly toward development and operations and we wouldn’t be here without that. You are also likely aware that investors play a key role in bringing the game to life. We partner with like-minded individuals who have a passion for Pantheon and share the vision and values of what we are creating.

Today, it is our pleasure to announce that we have secured another $2.4 million USD from private investments to help us continue this incredible, community-building project. Added to the funds raised in earlier stages of Series A funding, our total investment capital raised to date, is now $5.34 million. This figure is additional to crowdfunding efforts and is a huge accomplishment for Pantheon! We are grateful for our ardent and supportive community, and our investors who share the same zeal to see Pantheon break into the modern game sphere and bring people together. It has been an unprecedented journey, and it is an enormous joy to continue to bring it closer to launch with all of you.

To address this landmark occasion and in lieu of our normal VIP-only Developer Roundtable, next week Twitch star CohhCarnage has invited CEO Chris Rowan and Creative Director Chris Perkins to join his stream to talk about what the investment means for Pantheon. The duo will also review the state of the game and highlight some of the recent developments you may have seen in our development streams.There will be a limited time for audience questions, so if you have anything you would like to ask, please post it on the forum thread. Please be aware that we anticipate a large amount of questions from a very large audience and will only have time for a short Q and A.

The special stream will take place at 11am PDT Wednesday, July 27th on CohhCarnage’s Twitch channel.

In celebration of the investment news, launching on Wednesday, July 27th, we are offering a limited-time Scion of the Black Rose Pledge package, in addition to our existing pledge packages, which start at $50. The new pledge includes all of the rewards from the Black Rose pledge plus Pre-Alpha testing access. The next Pre-Alpha test is scheduled for this summer. The Scion of the Black Rose will be available at $750. This pledge can also be made for three monthly installments of $250 each. The Scion of the Black Rose is also available as an upgrade to existing pledges. Please note that this pledge does not include additional VIP rewards outside of Pre-Alpha testing.

Thank you all once again for your support, camaraderie and continued adventures as Pantheon moves towards Alpha and beyond. We look forward to seeing you at the stream, on the forums, on social media and anywhere else where there’s a Pantheon community.

Be sure to check out the rest of the articles in the newsletter. Below you’ll find this month’s updated Roadmap to Alpha which outlines some exciting progress in many areas including banks, environments, player and armor models, animation, gathering, and the newly-implemented near-death mechanic which you can read even more about here. Also be sure to check out the Community Feature with Pada, a grandmother from England who can’t wait to set foot in Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen. And if you missed any of our other content since the last newsletter, you can find it in our Month in Review.

See you all at the stream!

Roadmap to Alpha Progress

Design Complete – Denotes items that have a complete and ratified design document and are awaiting an implementation plan.
To Do – Denotes items that have a finished implementation plan and are scheduled, but work has not yet begun. This can also apply to items that are partially implemented that are awaiting additional work to be fully completed.
In Progress – Denotes items that are currently being worked on but are not yet ready for Alpha release.
Complete – Items that are in-game and ready for Alpha release.

Items marked UPDATED have a new status or information from last month’s Producer’s Letter.

Programming & Design

NPC Combat Awareness: Complete
What it is: Support for advanced NPC decision-making and tactics based on their knowledge of the surrounding environment.

• Ongoing Combat Awareness content will be added to the game as more NPCs and encounters are developed on the road to Alpha.

Asset & Terrain Streaming: Complete
What it is: Development of technology to support performant streaming (both client and network) of game assets, visuals, and server data.

HDRP Conversion: Complete
What it is: Conversion of our existing project to a new rendering pipeline to allow for higher definition graphics, more powerful rendering tools, and improved client performance.

Classes & Combat: In Progress UPDATED
What it is: Implementation of remaining core class components such as unique resources, mechanics, and UI.

• Completed initial implementation of Near-Death and revised Death Penalty mechanics.
• Aid, resurrection, corpse-dragging, and corpse-summoning mechanics remain to be implemented.
• Implemented the updated level 10-20 ability kits for Dire Lord, Enchanter, Monk, Rogue, Shaman, and Wizard classes

Network Overhaul: In Progress UPDATED
What it is: Development of a custom network solution to enable performant player concurrency and server-side calculations on the required scale of an MMORPG.

• Completed core integration of ViNL

• We are continuing to identify and address minor bugs resulting from this integration

• Key post-ViNL functionality that will follow cross-tile pathfinding include:

• Seamless Loading
• NPC Pathfinding Across Tiles & Zones
• Cross-Zone Communication & Group Persistence
• Custom Zone Border Shapes
• Local Weather Profiles
• Dynamic Entity Spawning Systems (Pets, Adds, Event-driven Spawns)

Pets: To Do
What it is: Development of the systems and user-interface required to support permanent and temporary player-controlled minions.

• Scheduled for implementation once the new networking is in place.

Ability Loadouts: To Do
What it is: Development of a tool to allow players to save and load pre-defined hotbar configurations.

Gathering and Crafting: In Progress UPDATED
What it is: Development of supporting tools, UI, and infrastructure for the implementation of Gathering and Crafting content, gameplay, and progression.

• Placement of mining nodes in Avendyr’s Pass is in-progress.

Perception System: To Do
What it is: While we are able to support preliminary implementations of Perception content, additional development is needed for supporting tools and UI required to implement Perception and its related features and progression on a larger scale with the quality intended for Alpha and beyond.

Faction: To Do
What it is: While the Faction system is fully integrated and working, additional development is needed to support leveraging Faction for other aspects of gameplay, such as gaining access to specific Tasks, Storylines, Merchants, etc.

Climbing Improvements: To Do
What it is: Refinements to the existing Climbing system to introduce a climbing-specific resource and related UI, associate Climbing with an improvable skill, implement new surface types with different climbability challenges, and improve climbing animations.

Swimming: To Do
What it is: Implementation of a swimming locomotion system including support for Z-axis movement, the creation of a new suite of swimming animations, and implementation of a water system.

Acclimation: To Do
What it is: Implement improvements to the Acclimation user experience by improving the audiovisual components, improving the UI and Glyph acquisition/equipment systems, and implementing additional climates.

Dispositions and Traits: In Progress
What it is: Develop systems required to improve the support for Disposition and Trait spawning rules, as well as dedicated UI components to display Dispositions and Traits to players.

LFG Tool: To Do
What it is: Develop a UI and supporting infrastructure to allow players to list themselves as looking for a group, or looking for additional members, using specified criteria in order to find other players to pursue shared gameplay goals.

Basic Guild System: To Do
What it is: Develop a UI and supporting infrastructure to allow players to form guilds with a private chat channel, basic hierarchies, and membership management commands.

Banks: Complete UPDATED
What it is: Develop mechanisms for the storage and retrieval of items and currency via NPC interactions.

Improve Starting Experience for New Players: In Progress
What it is: Develop tutorialization to introduce players to gameplay basics. Add and refine content in starting areas to provide a robust and engaging early-game experience.

Art

Zones: In Progress UPDATED

What it is: Develop game zones to support planned content and gameplay. Convert greyboxed zones to sculpted terrain and develop with unique props and environment art passes to realize aesthetic goals.

• Visual polish is underway for POIs in Thronefast.
• Initiated work on developing custom terrain and flora textures for Thronefast and Avendyr’s Pass.
• Integrated new cliff spline tool to enable rapid generation of large scale, freeform cliff creation.
• Completed several optimizations related to biome generation and in-editor biome editing
• Completed the development of enhanced biome and road painting tools.

Player Models: In Progress UPDATED

What it is: Rig remaining player race models (Skar, Dark Myr, Archai) so they can be animated and conform all non-Human races and genders to our entity outfitting system so they can equip/unequip armor dynamically.

• Completed modeling for an additional armor set.
• Completed R&D on updates to armor fitting and rigging pipelines to allow for faster creation of armors fitted to multiple races.

NPC Models: In Progress
What it is: Develop new NPC and creature models for use in world population and content development.

• Added Giganaa Giant Male model.
• Began concepting for additional wildlife / enemy creatures in Wilds End.

General 3D Assets: In Progress UPDATED
What it is: Develop 3D assets for equippable weapons, armor, and various non-environment world props.

• Completed three additional variant models for mining nodes
• Completed a wooden texture variant for the Human dwelling kit.
• Completed a performance improvement pass on the Human dwelling kit.

Animations: In Progress UPDATED
What it is: Develop player and NPC animations to support locomotion, combat, emotes, and other gameplay.

• Completed swimming animations for Dark Myr.
• Completed three additional casting animations.
• Completed animation for underwater mining nodes.
• Initiated work to remediate older animations on revised player rig.
• Initiated work on updating climbing animations for revised player rig.

Audio

Audio: In Progress
What it is: Develop environmental soundscapes, create unique sound effects for players and NPCs, and introduce ambient and signature music.

Producer’s Letter	Monthly Recap	The Near Death Experience	Community Feature