Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen

[Enitzu]

Wildstar was not trying to be popular or WoW killer either. But they had way better graphics though and an interesting setting. Didn't help them a tiny bit.

Hate to tell you but as someone who was pre alpha testing Wildstar, their graphics blew chunks at this stage too. All games do. Being 'pretty' is not what you go for in the beginning. It's what you do at the end after you have everything else in place. Considering how things look at this stage for Pantheon, they are well on their way. More polish will come later.

And there really wasn't anything "hardcore" about Wildstar. We leveled to cap and were raiding in under a week. The only thing that said "hardcore" about that game was the original 40 man raids which they quickly gave up on opting for a more wow-esque approach with the more casual friendly side being pushed hard while nerfs destroyed the only good things about the game.

[TheFirstOnes]

Why does the title of this shit sound like it came from the Ordering of the WOW cosmos, up until the point of their fall by Sargeras?

Hmmmmmmmmm.........

[Dullah]

It looks like you completely ignored the post you quoted *mind exploded*

Wildstar was not trying to be popular or WoW killer either. But they had way better graphics though and an interesting setting. Didn't help them a tiny bit.

- - - Updated - - -



If you define success as "some small amount of people will play it and developers will be ok with such turn of events" then yes it will be a success! lol.

Pantheon is an entirely different model of game. Hardcore is an ambiguous term. Wildstar was hardcore in it's style of play. Pantheon will not be about end game and clearing instances and dungeons at extreme difficulties. The idea is to make the entire experience enjoyable, and each level an achievement.

Also much more focused on the need for social interaction and cooperative play. That means no queuing and instantly appearing in dungeons with a group of people. You will actually be required to make friends and play the game. You know, like MMORPGs used to be.

That and Wildstar was just a horrible game in general. It was supposed to be geared towards a vanilla WoW audience, but ended up emulating the worst parts of WoW without the social aspect that made it memorable - you know, the parts they borrowed from EverQuest and have since removed.

[Post]

You know, like MMORPGs used to be.

And how every terrible attempt at a nostalgia-feeding MMO has advertised to be since then, and then failed one way or another.

[Edge-]

And how every terrible attempt at a nostalgia-feeding MMO has advertised to be since then, and then failed one way or another.

Which MMO's, specifically? The closest I can think of that tried that was SWTOR with their instances, but that was largely a contradiction in design as the rest of the game was designed off of WoW (a point which BW bragged about). And that didn't even last too long, as they caved and added in an automated LFD system (server only, much to the annoyance of the players) within like, the first year alone. The game was never designed to support non-automated group instances, given how heavily it cribbed from modern WoW design (which necessitates automated LFD).

Other than that, the only other games that are marketing themselves like that are games like Pantheon that are largely crowdfunded and currently in active development.

[Post]

Which MMO's, specifically?

Well like you said, most crowdfunded MMOs, like currently Ashes of Creation, it's hard to name a bunch that have come out because they almost always fail before they're actually done, as I said. Just some examples of ones that have come out or already failed: Rift, Greed Monger (lol), Wildstar, Trials of Ascension (lol), EQ Next, Dark & Light, Secret World, Vanguard. It's harder for me to think of an MMO that has come out that didn't try to capitalize on "how MMOs used to be."

Keep in mind, when I say that I'm not saying that they purposely tried to make a WoW clone, obviously those games are different than WoW, I'm just talking about trying to hop on the nostalgia train. It typically comes in the form of less convenience or higher difficulty.

[Edge-]

Well like you said, most crowdfunded MMOs, like currently Ashes of Creation, it's hard to name a bunch that have come out because they almost always fail before they're actually done, as I said.

So...a bunch that have somehow failed despite them successfully getting crowdfunded and being in active development?

I'm terribly confused dude, you're not being clear at all.

Just some examples of ones that have come out or already failed: Rift, Greed Monger (lol), Wildstar, Trials of Ascension (lol), EQ Next, Dark & Light, Secret World, Vanguard. It's harder for me to think of an MMO that has come out that didn't try to capitalize on "how MMOs used to be."

Rift - quite successful for many years, and never marketed itself as a hardcore MMO in the slightest.
Greed Monger - was never a game to begin with, not sure why you are including it in this list.
WildStar - Very different type of "hardcore", and a distinctly flawed game for entirely separate reasons. Also, was clearly aiming for mass-market success while Pantheon (and these other smaller crowdfunded affairs) are aiming for a much tighter/smaller segment of the market, and have correspondingly lower expectations.
Trials of Ascension - same as Greed Monger. I mean, if you put obvious scams on this list it can get really long, but it will also be totally fucking pointless.
EQ Next - Never fucking existed, was never marketed as a more hardcore/group based return to "traditional" MMO's in the slightest.
Dark & Light - Can't remember the marketing around this one very well so can't speak to it. I know they're doing a relaunch of it now, but none of the marketing I've seen positions it in the same vein as a game like Pantheon. Seems like they're leaning hard on the more sandboxy elements, if anything else.
Secret World - Again, I don't recall it marketing itself that way, and the design sure didn't reinforce that either. Its failures were for a whole host of other reasons, though.
Vanguard - Especially relevant given McQuaid's involvement, but the failures of this game are tied to McQuaid and the business end of things rather than the development/design.

Keep in mind, when I say that I'm not saying that they purposely tried to make a WoW clone, obviously those games are different than WoW, I'm just talking about trying to hop on the nostalgia train. It typically comes in the form of less convenience or higher difficulty.

The closest to jumping on the "nostalgia train" any of those games really came to, as far as memory serves, was WildStar pushing its 40 man raids and attunements as major marketing "features".

And Vanguard came out far too early to try to bank on the "nostalgia" train in the slightest, especially considering how innovative and unique most of that game was. I mean, for fuck sake, they literally built a full fledged game within the game (Diplomacy) that Daybreak likely could, if they wanted, copy/paste into its own stand-alone game. The game was super innovative and took a huge amount of risks, I'm not sure where you're getting the nostalgia banking from.

[Dullah]

There hasn't been anything even remotely like EQ/Vanguard or what Pantheon claims it will be. RPGs and MMORPGs were about in-depth progression of both your character and the storyline. That translated to time invested in your character and the world being of as much importance as personal skill. It was also about making meaningful decisions and choosing your own adventure. In the online setting, that meant building relationships to overcome a dangerous world that was not safe by yourself. Social challenges were as important as mechanical challenges.

None of those things remain intact in our modern MMORPGs. Pantheon seeks to bring that back.

Just to note, Pantheon has never claimed itself "hardcore". EQ wasn't even hardcore, as it was originally a group-focused game and the average player played casually - especially by today's standards. It was but a small minority that played EQ hardcore, and that was mostly related to time devotion, and not necessarily related to skill requirements. They intend that a player coordinating properly can achieve something in a two hour play session.

[Dullah]

Nostalgia is far less important than the actual design. I'm sure people will initially enjoy a game similar to one they have fond memories of, but ultimately what made EQ memorable was the fact that it was actually massively multiplayer. As such, you always had to rely on other players, progression was slower and a shared experience, and that meant there was always something more to achieve - permitted you could find the other players necessary to achieve it.

[Post]

So...a bunch that have somehow failed despite them successfully getting crowdfunded and being in active development?

I'm terribly confused dude, you're not being clear at all.

I don't really consider getting crowdfunded a success for an MMO.

Rift - quite successful for many years, and never marketed itself as a hardcore MMO in the slightest.
Greed Monger - was never a game to begin with, not sure why you are including it in this list.
WildStar - Very different type of "hardcore", and a distinctly flawed game for entirely separate reasons. Also, was clearly aiming for mass-market success while Pantheon (and these other smaller crowdfunded affairs) are aiming for a much tighter/smaller segment of the market, and have correspondingly lower expectations.
Trials of Ascension - same as Greed Monger. I mean, if you put obvious scams on this list it can get really long, but it will also be totally fucking pointless.
EQ Next - Never fucking existed, was never marketed as a more hardcore/group based return to "traditional" MMO's in the slightest.
Dark & Light - Can't remember the marketing around this one very well so can't speak to it. I know they're doing a relaunch of it now, but none of the marketing I've seen positions it in the same vein as a game like Pantheon. Seems like they're leaning hard on the more sandboxy elements, if anything else.
Secret World - Again, I don't recall it marketing itself that way, and the design sure didn't reinforce that either. Its failures were for a whole host of other reasons, though.
Vanguard - Especially relevant given McQuaid's involvement, but the failures of this game are tied to McQuaid and the business end of things rather than the development/design.

The only way for me to argue against your opinion of "I don't remember it being this way" would be to find examples of marketing from every one of those MMO's, and I haven't slept in way too long to really do that, sorry. As for your ToA and Greed Monger comment, well they got crowdfunded so they can make the list, I didn't just mean huge MMOs from somewhat competent dev teams.

The closest to jumping on the "nostalgia train" any of those games really came to, as far as memory serves, was WildStar pushing its 40 man raids and attunements as major marketing "features".

And Vanguard came out far too early to try to bank on the "nostalgia" train in the slightest, especially considering how innovative and unique most of that game was. I mean, for fuck sake, they literally built a full fledged game within the game (Diplomacy) that Daybreak likely could, if they wanted, copy/paste into its own stand-alone game. The game was super innovative and took a huge amount of risks, I'm not sure where you're getting the nostalgia banking from.

So I appreciate the fact that you put a ton of effort into your reply relatively speaking, I'm just too tired to give the effort that your response deserved, so I'll have to just leave it at what I said before, these MMO's go for bringing back what MMOs used to be in terms of inconvenience or difficulty. Maybe its just the awful communities that hype up MMOs to ridiculous levels, but just type the name of any of those MMOs followed by "vanilla wow," to see people getting the impression that it would bring back the good ol' days.

I'm going to stop posting now that I can't properly function.

[Edge-]

I don't really consider getting crowdfunded a success for an MMO.

It's a success at funding, but my point was more that these games aren't even out yet. There have been a few that are already either completely dead or all but dead (Pathfinder Online being one that's on life support despite the best efforts of Goblin Works), but the majority of the successfully crowdfunded games are still making progress towards launch just fine (Camelot Unchained, Shadow of the Avatar, Crowfall, etc.)

The only way for me to argue against your opinion of "I don't remember it being this way" would be to find examples of marketing from every one of those MMO's, and I haven't slept in way too long to really do that, sorry. As for your ToA and Greed Monger comment, well they got crowdfunded so they can make the list, I didn't just mean huge MMOs from somewhat competent dev teams.

You're making the claims, either back them up or don't.

As for ToA and GM, I believe only Greed Monger succeeded in getting the money it asked for (and then some, earned $90k on a $30k ask), but quickly fell apart. It was during the earlier days of crowdfunding when folks backed less promising/riskier ventures, and it was painfully amateurish in how it ended up being handled. But those two specifically have been a long running joke in the MMO community because of how much of a shitshow both were from the PoV of MMO vets.

So I appreciate the fact that you put a ton of effort into your reply relatively speaking, I'm just too tired to give the effort that your response deserved, so I'll have to just leave it at what I said before, these MMO's go for bringing back what MMOs used to be in terms of inconvenience or difficulty. Maybe its just the awful communities that hype up MMOs to ridiculous levels, but just type the name of any of those MMOs followed by "vanilla wow," to see people getting the impression that it would bring back the good ol' days.

I'm going to stop posting now that I can't properly function.

Fair enough, get some rest, bro.

I agree that some of the nostalgia-baiting is dumb, but I think there's absolutely a market for a more traditional/oldschool/"harder" MMO like Pantheon. I'll point to Shroud of the Avatar as an example of a crowdfunded smaller MMO (psuedo-MMO) that's managed to do well for itself because it knew what it wanted to be and had reasonable expectations. It's nearing launch, but the game has been a pretty decent success story when it comes to this front. It's not perfect by any means, and it's still got plenty of room to improve, but similar to Pantheon/McQuaid, SotA/Garriot knew that the game was going to be a small, niche title that would never have mass-market appeal. The games budgets, goals, and expectations were set accordingly, so it being a modest success is very much in-line with everything. These games are never going to be multi-million unit sellers with 6 digit+ subscriber numbers.

I'm hopeful that Pantheon sees similar results, despite my continued skepticism regarding McQuaid being able to deliver on his promises (largely as a result of the spectacular failure Vanguard was and the shady business when the tried the first Kickstarter for Pantheon). Part of that is because it seems very obvious that they're setting both community and business expectations to reasonable bars.

I mean hell, EQ1 largely runs off of its time-locked progression servers nowadays, and those are literally older version of the game for the most part. Ultima Online is even still kicking, and released a bloody paid expansion last year.

I'll totally agree with you regarding awful communities. The vocal hardcore supporters of most of these smaller games (and larger ones, looking at you SWTOR and WildStar) are truly some of the most toxic and obnoxious folks I've had interacted with.

[stellvia]

Well like you said, most crowdfunded MMOs, like currently Ashes of Creation, it's hard to name a bunch that have come out because they almost always fail before they're actually done, as I said. Just some examples of ones that have come out or already failed: Rift, Greed Monger (lol), Wildstar, Trials of Ascension (lol), EQ Next, Dark & Light, Secret World, Vanguard. It's harder for me to think of an MMO that has come out that didn't try to capitalize on "how MMOs used to be."

You're stretching quite a bit here. Rift never billed itself as "oldschool" and had a lot of progressive elements like rifts themselves, chloromancer as a hybrid healer that DPS'd to heal the group, etc. EQ Next wasn't trying to copy the old EQ formula at all if you paid attention to development. Vanguard is from 2007 and is from a former EQ guy so unsurprising it would feel a bit like EQ. Never heard of Greed Monger or Dark and Light.

[Edge-]

Vanguard is from 2007 and is from a former EQ guy so unsurprising it would feel a bit like EQ.

Brad McQuaid, also the same cat behind this game : P

[ossyc]

In pre-alpha currently.

It's coming along nicely. There's a lot of people hyped for this game!

[Tackhisis]

In pre-alpha currently.

It has been 2 years and it is still in pre-alpha?

[ossyc]

It has been 2 years and it is still in pre-alpha?

It was only internal. It has now opened up to pre-alpha in December 2017. They are testing properly now, alpha coming soon, then beta. Looking really good, graphics, atmosphere, characters etc. improving day by day.

[meowfurion]

They haven't updated their website in like 2 years. I've given up on this game, honestly. I used to follow it, but now it's like, shit or get off the pot.

[ossyc]

They haven't updated their website in like 2 years. I've given up on this game, honestly. I used to follow it, but now it's like, shit or get off the pot.

MMOs take time, 4-5 year dev time. It sucks but that's the way it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz_29h3_Npw

[potis]

And because they take so long they are dead before they even come out.

All MMOs releasing have the same problem for years now.

1)Too few will leave their old game and years of progression to go to a similar MMO, why Rift/SWToR/Wildstar eventually fail, they are awesome for a few months were WoW is in stagnation mode, then people disappear back to it, not because of anything because so many years invested.

I was there for Rift, SWTOR was a failure from the get go to whoever had half a brain and wasnt blinded by "STAR WARS OMG" and Wildstar was promising but failed from the expected result, "Too hardcore for 201x" which a few did warn them from the beta testing but they didnt listen.

2)Creating a niche MMO like this and Darkfall etc etc is why they fail also, the hardcore genre is dead, the people left interested in it are a minority of the minority of the minority, but they are very loud, trying to find the new messiah.

3)They are supposed to start up with a few standard features for 2018/2017/2016/2015 whenever they release, they dont release with those features, people cry dear murder and abandon it.

Now its logical they cant release with many features, development costs but its why they die also.

People are tired of giving chances, simple as that.

This MMO no matter how good it sounds on paper will fail eventually if they try to go too big, they should focus on their niche crowd, with the development costs around there also.

I mean, its another mmo trying to hit on nostalgia for people that are already 35+ or even older.

Personally i could never play it with how clunky it looks when i can literally even count the pixels on the screen.

[Enfilade]

Hopefully this isn't considered a necro. If it is, my apologies, mods.

Anyway, I started watching some videos and doing more research about this game and I am extremely hyped to play it. I've been looking for something more hardcore and with an emphasis on social experiences, since WoW hasn't done this in a long time.

I wish Visionary Realms would get Cohh back on stream again, he was awesome and seemed like he was having a genuinely good time.