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[Interview] Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen: Brad McQuaid On What Comes Next

13

Comments

  • azzamasinazzamasin Member UncommonPosts: 3,105

    Here's a concept and some feedback if the Developers are willing to listen.

     

    While I appreciate the attempt at old school MMO design, there is ample evidence that many elements of that old school design is archaic and should stay in the annals of history.  Get rid of Forced Grouping, long downtime between combat, and slow methodical snooze infested gameplay and innovate, innovate and then innovate some more.

     

    Your welcome.

    Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!

    Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!

    Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!

    image

  • azzamasinazzamasin Member UncommonPosts: 3,105
    Originally posted by Maric
    I'm backing Pantheon. We need more choices in the genre. We need to put the challenge back into MMORPG. I'm so sick of themepark MMOs. I'd much rather play an old school niche MMORPG than a brony colored WoW clone.
     

    Sick of Themepark MMO's as well but I'll never go back to a game that requires you to group and grind mobs in a static location, combat animations take minutes to go through or has immense downtime where you need to "Med between pulls" ~~~*SHUDDERS*~~~

     

    There's a reason why Vanguard and other games of it's caliber never exceeded more then a few hundred thousand potential players.

    Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!

    Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!

    Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!

    image

  • GorillaGorilla Member UncommonPosts: 2,235
    Some quite scary answers there (from a potential investors point of view). Personally I think the people that pledged had a lucky escape. I wonder if there really are angels that are naive enough to invest based on a laundry list of 'features' rather than a sound business plan? Brads solution get a bigger napkin for the feature list. Absolutely beggars belief.
  • GorillaGorilla Member UncommonPosts: 2,235
    Originally posted by GeezerGamer

    “We approached this as MMO developers... We should have taken at least an extra two-to-four weeks and put together all of that [gameplay] information in a way that people expect to see it conveyed, and we should have then launched with everything up and available and viewable from the beginning.”That didn't happen. Instead, they were “scrambling from day one” to make game details available to the public." 1st Vanguard's comedy of errors in development, now this right out of the gate on his next project?Just can't seem to get behind this project even though it looks like it would be a great game.

     

    Should of just thrown more money at it. Or gone on an extended sabbatical. Or both.
  • GorillaGorilla Member UncommonPosts: 2,235
    Originally posted by ITPalg

    Originally posted by GrumpyMel2
    Let me put this as delicately as I can. Brad,  it's not the game concept that people rejected. It's you sitting at the helm and being responsible for the finances that go into making it that people rejected. You are a talented creative guy...no one trusts you as an executive manager.

     

    There is a difference between being a CEO and a CCO, which he is the latter and not the former.

     

    He can call himself what he likes but the reality is that currently he is CEO CFO CCO head of sales, marketing, human resources etc. The only appointments have been 'creatives'. Put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig.
  • grimfallgrimfall Member UncommonPosts: 1,153
    Originally posted by azzamasin

    Here's a concept and some feedback if the Developers are willing to listen.

     

    While I appreciate the attempt at old school MMO design, there is ample evidence that many elements of that old school design is archaic and should stay in the annals of history.  Get rid of Forced Grouping, long downtime between combat, and slow methodical snooze infested gameplay and innovate, innovate and then innovate some more.

     

    Your welcome.

    The door is that way.

    My welcome?

  • grimfallgrimfall Member UncommonPosts: 1,153
    Originally posted by DMKano

    Brad said something along the lines of ~ Pantheon is a game that no game studio is willing to dare attempt to make.

    The reason why - there is not enough of an audience to warrant the cost of making it.

    Step #1 - make sure there is a buyer for your product, otherwise its a waste of time and money.

    I say time to rethink the entire project.

     

    I think really they needed to show more art assets.  Who launches a kickstarter without a bunch of concept art?

    The grouping mechanics sound great, but I need a world to be excited about.

  • winterwinter Member UncommonPosts: 2,281
    Originally posted by itchmon
    i hope in the Podcast you asked something along the lines of "you are trying to charge people per month to access forums.  This is money-grubbing bullcrap at its lowest, most snakelike level.  please discuss"

      Agreed this is the biggest money grab scan in the history of gaming. Charging  a monthly subscription to post on a forum with your name in a different color. Gee all that and only $14.95 a month. As it is people actually complain when designers that actually have a working game charge that much to play it rather then just post on a forum of a few game designers who have no office, no game, and just want to have a income while they work part time on some ideas they have.

      The kickstarter failed and this game will never see the light of day no matter how many suckers and dreaming well wishers throw money at it. If the team can't even run a low goal kickstarter how in the heck can you believe they can release a fun MMO?

  • CoatedCoated Member UncommonPosts: 507

    Regardless of game mechanics and bringing back old school gaming, this game is the biggest crap fest in the history of MMORPG's to have ever been propositioned. You can bring back 'old-school' gaming and still be inventive. You can bring back Old-school gaming and still create something unique. This game is honestly the biggest joke in the history of MMORPG's. I feel like the creator of this game got together with people and said, "Watch this, I bet I can make the ugliest, most generic, uninspiring MMORPG and those idiot gamers will still buy it", as a test to how moronic the MMORPG community has become.

    Shame on anyone who is supporting this.

  • xAPOCxxAPOCx Member UncommonPosts: 869
    Originally posted by winter
    Originally posted by itchmon
    i hope in the Podcast you asked something along the lines of "you are trying to charge people per month to access forums.  This is money-grubbing bullcrap at its lowest, most snakelike level.  please discuss"

      Agreed this is the biggest money grab scan in the history of gaming. Charging  a monthly subscription to post on a forum with your name in a different color. Gee all that and only $14.95 a month. As it is people actually complain when designers that actually have a working game charge that much to play it rather then just post on a forum of a few game designers who have no office, no game, and just want to have a income while they work part time on some ideas they have.

      The kickstarter failed and this game will never see the light of day no matter how many suckers and dreaming well wishers throw money at it. If the team can't even run a low goal kickstarter how in the heck can you believe they can release a fun MMO?

    I stopped reading your post here. Because if the rest of your post is as stupid as that first sentence, then i fear i would start to loose my IQ if i continued to read on.

    image

  • SamhaelSamhael Member RarePosts: 1,495

    I believe the answer to the question of "if the MMO community was even interested in..." was pretty much resolved with the Kickstarter. 

    That said, if some of the core game tenets/features were reviewed and revised, I might buy in. Not the challenge or the grouping part -- I think those are the best parts!  Specifically, the parts about "travelling the planar scarred lands" because the teleports/summons are limited. I'm 43 and work 50-60 hours a week... I want to be able to spend my time beating on mobs in a dungeon and working out new boss strategies and NOT spending a good chunk of my limited play time getting to a dungeon and having to wait for everyone else to get there as well. Also, I really don't care to grind faction and he mentions that faction is important in both "Features" and "Tenets" so that was a negative for me. Also, I don't like to just randomly click on NPCs so I think choosing to omit visual indicators of quest givers is a pretty big issue. 

  • ZagaZaga Member Posts: 23
    Originally posted by Bannuk

    A better question.  Why would anyone ever trust this knucklehead ever again much less give him a job creating any form of computer game?

    The people giving him a job creating a computer game are gamers who don't care about babysitting their 100 dollar donation to make sure something eventually comes from it.

    There's no responsible business minded investor around to push for a project director that is minimally capable of guaranteeing a return on their six-digit investment.

  • PalaziousPalazious Member Posts: 162

    I really enjoy Brad designed MMOs.

    That being said... if he gets it to closed beta and it works then I'll gladly preorder and pay a monthly fee for it.

    "if" is the key word

    Palazious <The Vindicators> Darkfall
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    Poppa Reaver bugged at rank15

  • kishekishe Member UncommonPosts: 2,012
    Best brad could do with 200 million dollars is vanguard...just what do you guys expect him to do with 800k?
  • goemoegoemoe Member UncommonPosts: 272
    Originally posted by GrumpyMel2
    Let me put this as delicately as I can. Brad,  it's not the game concept that people rejected. It's you sitting at the helm and being responsible for the finances that go into making it that people rejected. You are a talented creative guy...no one trusts you as an executive manager.

    This. And this whole kickstarter thingy showed this very well. Brad and his crew think they are very special, to be adored, justifying a fee, only to talk to them. Their fanboys shout at everyone being critical and thus Brad will never even recognize what is going wrong.

    VR has a cool team of creative guys (lacking at least one woman in the crew, to even things out) but they don't have a proper management to show them their way. Brad so much believes he is Mr. Cool, that he will always get in his own way. It's a pity. Perhaps one time they stumble upon a person who is allowed to manage them as it should be done.

    That and the overall attitude of the EQ1 fanboys, being unfriendly to everything critical will hinder Pantheon to ever become the great game it could be.

  • GadarethGadareth Member UncommonPosts: 310

    His case history speaks for itself EverQuest and Vanguard both games e pioneered the first spawned an entire industry and the second didn't manage to reach expectations.

    However Vanguard did not fail due to its concept or what was actually completed it failed because he was too ambitious and tried to give to much. Which ended up failing because he was not able to finish. If he had focused on the one continent at the beginning and added the second as either a later development or as a expansion things would have started better.

    Now lets look at the forum access for nothing you can read the forums that is free and clear. F0r $5 a month you get a voice in forums. For $15 a  month you get to join in in the game mechanics discussions and help influence certain areas of the games development.

    SO basically its not a bad thing the people talking and helping with game policy are actually people who give a damn about the game.

    Just my 2 cents

     

  • tom_goretom_gore Member UncommonPosts: 2,001

    Some people just don't know when to stop. The Kickstarter failure should have been all the signs they need to ditch their idea and go work on something else.

    Now they're asking for people's money directly without any goals or promises. I think that's called "begging".

  • KreetureKreeture Member UncommonPosts: 59
    Originally posted by Burntvet

    Lot of softballs in that so-called interview, and not a tough question in the lot.

    No follow-up questions about how/why the KS failed, and potentially violated KS terms, by wanting to use the money to "start a business"?

    Nothing about no one else having the gall to charge $15/mo for a forum subscription?

     

    I would say this was "bad games journalism" but there needs to be actual journalism for it to be bad.

    This was a softcore marketing piece dressed up in a cheap suit.

    No one HAS to pay the sub, people are paying the sub because they believe in the game AND Brad. You guys forget what Brad did for the mmo industry- He made some of the best and innovative games there is. Mebe he isn't a marketing genius but hes a damn good game developer and I wish him all the success in the world for Pantheon. Don't you guys want a great new game?

  • EndoRobotoEndoRoboto Member Posts: 275
    I think they have a passion for something that is entirely lacking today besides what can be found on emulated servers of 15 year old games. I think they are willing to do what they have to for this project to come to fruition. At least 3000+ people agreed.

    Only person here begging is me for you people to open your brains for a second longer than to drop your snarky fucking dead-end comments.
  • FinalFikusFinalFikus Member Posts: 906


    I'm not a fan of EQ style games, but Brad's were always decent. Even Vanguard was one of the better ones. 

    That whole group of original mmorpg makers have more hate stalkers than people currently ruining the entire genre faster than Brad could help make it.

    I wish him luck just to piss those people off.

    "If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"

  • MaquiameMaquiame Member UncommonPosts: 1,073
    Originally posted by kishe
    Best brad could do with 200 million dollars is vanguard...just what do you guys expect him to do with 800k?

    Another example of humans not being able to read or research

     

    Vanguard cost between 30 and 40 million to make. I get it you play TOR (roflmao) and am awaiting TESO so you have that 200 million dollar figure in your head. Its okay really.

    Its like watching some huckster/heckler join in to a conversation just to join the crowd

    Hyuh hyuh! He paid two hunndwed million yes he did, yes he did!!

     

    Please show me where it says Vanguard cost 200 million.

    I ask anyone who wishes to at least bring truth to the table to watch this.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45XrbsBt34c

     

    Or stop joining into conversations you don't have a clue about.

    image

    Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!

  • AraduneAradune Sigil Games CEOMember RarePosts: 294
    Originally posted by Epicon
    Hopefully you can accept Brad has earned his haters, these last several years, for a good reason. This isn't the case of a misunderstood hero, trying to save games, while dealing with a sea of irrational haters.

    Hint*

    People aren't just down on him because of Pantheon, there has been another key failure, on a game he left that was in development but ran out of money, funded by a kickstarter.

    No, there was not.  This was the first Kickstarter I've ever been involved with.  My other two mmos were Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and EverQuest 1.   Vanguard did run out of money after Microsoft's PC games group all left the company and the  new group wasn't interested in Vanguard. is Vanguard what you are trying to refer to?

    If so, please do your research and talk to people who have played the game.  Early on, because we had to release 6 months early, the game performed bad... really bad... like unplayably bad.  But then then SOE was able to take some time and optimize and polish Vanguard and it turned into a great game.  The people who stuck with it or who came back after it was optimized speak very highly of the game.  Financial success?  No.  Success in making a very fun game with a loyal player base, incorporating some new and innovative features like Diplomacy and a seamless world? Yes.  Did I make mistakes?  Yes, absolutely, and I will always regret them.  But I have also 1. learned from my mistakes and 2. become very proud of the game overall because it provided so much fun for the, albeit small, playerbase over a SEVEN year period.  Not a lot of MMOs out there that have run that many years and when you talk to the game's players, virtually all of them go on and on about what a great game it was and how much fun they had playing it those 7 years.

    I wish I could find the damn link, or remember the game's name but it's fact. Several developers on the game, cited him for misspending funds and not working closely with the dev team at all. I don't know how this is never brought up or even mentioned.

    Unsubstantiated rumor.  You won't find the link because neither Vanguard nor EverQuest used kickstarter (which didn't even exist when those games began development (1996 and 2002).  Misspending funds?  No, we built a very cutting-edge game both in terms of gameplay and technology.  We hired a lot of people, peaking at around 105 employees.  We offered very competitive salaries and benefits and never had any difficulty finding people who wanted to join us.  Not working with the dev team?  I was much more involved in the development and core design of the game than most CEOs.  When we ran out of Microsoft money, however, I made a deal with SOE for 6 months more funding and then went on the road talking to investors, trying to get 6 more months of funding.  Were we able to have received the full 1 year, the game would have been released optimized, polished, and with some of the features that we released unfinished finished.

    To be fair though I don't remember the game's name, and it was never made, so nobody knows about it either. He came out on the official forums of the game and said he was shutting it down. There you can read what the devs said about him.
    To be fair, please stop spreading rumors based on basically nothing :) You can't remember the game's name because there is no such game.  A game that was never made?  Are you talking about the facebook/zynga style game I was involved with for a short period of time?  That's the only thing I can think of... it was never finished nor released, nor did we ever even talk about it -- we just said we were working on a FB style game.  I was the creative guy on that, and I learned a lot, but I wasn't in charge of spending money, nor talking about it even, since we never announced it.
     
    *shrug* It sounds a lot like that game where you whisper in one kid's ear something, then he or she whispers it to the next kid, and so on, and then when you ask the last, 30th kid what was said, it's virtually unintelligible.  Perhaps even if you enjoy silly games like that, you should take care not to post the unintelligible result publicly, taking the risk that other people may actually take you seriously and spread misinformation around.
     
    My team and I are very serious about our new MMO Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen.  We have an awesome team, the game is really coming along quickly (Unity 3d is a fantastic engine), and we are finally bringing in some much needed funding so the team, who has been working pro-bono for months, can start to pay some bills.  

    If you don't like the design behind Pantheon... if they game is not for you... post and let everyone know why.  We'd certainly like to hear your opinion.  But spreading misinformaiton like this, where you can't even remember the title of the game you are trying to speak poorly of... man, that doesn't do anyone any favors.  

    -Brad 

     

    --

    --------------------------------------------------------------
    Brad McQuaid
    CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
    www.pantheonmmo.com
    --------------------------------------------------------------

  • uriel_mafessuriel_mafess Member UncommonPosts: 138
    Originally posted by Aradune
    Originally posted by tom_gore

    Some people just don't know when to stop. The Kickstarter failure should have been all the signs they need to ditch their idea and go work on something else.

    Now they're asking for people's money directly without any goals or promises. I think that's called "begging".

    You know, if you let minor defeats crush your dreams, you're really missing out on a lot of life.  Give up because we didn't hit $800k, but still got more than $400k and thousands of pledgers?  Run away when you've received more than 150 write-ups in various game sites, including some of the big ones like PC Gamer and IGN?  Surrender after a fantastic interview with Boogie who decided to back Pantheon even though he'd preached out against crowdfunding for years?

     

    You know, a lot of people told me I was nuts back in 1996/97.  What was I nuts about?  Apparently it was impossible to create a 3D MMO back then, and extra impossible to create one with enough content to entertain people for more than a week or two.  'Unpossible' to make an MMO with a focus on PvE and not PvP!  Didn't I know that once players zipped through the content in a week or so that the only incentive for them to keep playing was being able to kill each other?

     

    How about all of the flames about changing EQ here and there, continuing to balance it after release, and not being afraid to nerf an item and upset people if it made the game better and more balanced overall?  Should I have listened then and just given people whatever they wanted in terms of in-game rewards, regardless of how much effort and skill was employed? Didn't I know that most people don't raid and want it  to be MUCH easier to earn powerful items?  Should I have listened to all of that and just simplified the game and allowed for mistakes in balance to continue on and not be addressed?

     

    I guess I don't listen very well and take making a challenging and balanced game far too seriously?  I guess I should have changed EQ into a PvP game like UO instead of focusing on content and new expansions with new features and new areas to explore.  

     

    Guys, we're not the type to give up when we believe in something and when our future players believe in us.  I stuck to the 'vision' with EQ and it was the number one MMO for quite some time, peaking at approx. 550,000 players and making more than a half a billion dollars for Sony.  I listened to the players, and agreed with many and disagreed with others.  But I was out there on the message boards responding, because I cared.  The Pantheon team?  A bunch of guys who also care deeply about the game and who don't give up easily either.  We know there is a real audience out there for a game like Pantheon, and that audience includes us.  Setbacks, errors, and disappointments will always happen -- it's called Life.  it's what you do and how you react when the crap hits the fan that really defines you.  

     

    By sticking with Pantheon and by moving our crowdfunding too our own site, we've enjoyed some modest success.  By reaching out to angel investors, people with money who also want to see Pantheon become a reality, we're at the cusp of bringing in some serious funding that will allow us to lease some space, become even more productive, and to keep building the game.  Sometimes money comes easily (like when we founded Sigil and pitched Vanguard) and sometimes it comes hard (like it was initially for Pantheon, and like it was for Smed when he was trying to raise money to make EverQuest).  

     

    But ya gotta keep going, stay strong, and believe in yourself, your team, and your dream.  Otherwise you'll be kicking yourself for the rest of your life thinking, man, what if we didn't quit way back then... what if we would have stuck with it, through the good times AND the bad?

     

    -Brad

     

    I hope you have success with the project. Its not appealing to me and when you launched it into kickstarter it was to "presumptuous" aiming for so much and rushed IMHO but I have to admit that you and your team are relly commited into the project  and thats admirable.

    With your serene (and fact driven) reply you proved to be a good guy that believes in what he does without trying to hurt anyone. Maybe I was to harsh in my comment and in the analisys of your crowdfunding project.

    I wish you guys the best of lucks. Keep up the hard work.

  • AraduneAradune Sigil Games CEOMember RarePosts: 294
    Originally posted by Maquiame
    Originally posted by kishe
    Best brad could do with 200 million dollars is vanguard...just what do you guys expect him to do with 800k?

    Another example of humans not being able to read or research

     

    Vanguard cost between 30 and 40 million to make. I get it you play TOR (roflmao) and am awaiting TESO so you have that 200 million dollar figure in your head. Its okay really.

    Its like watching some huckster/heckler join in to a conversation just to join the crowd

    Hyuh hyuh! He paid two hunndwed million yes he did, yes he did!!

     

    Please show me where it says Vanguard cost 200 million.

    I ask anyone who wishes to at least bring truth to the table to watch this.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45XrbsBt34c

     

    Or stop joining into conversations you don't have a clue about.

     

    Thanks for helping clear that up.  Vanguard cost between $30 and $32M depending on how you look at some of the details.  WoW was something like $80M.  SWTOR and ESO north of $200M.

    If you look at Vanguard now and all of its features, especially some groundbreaking new features like Diplomacy, we got a lot done with that $30M over 5 years.  Compare the features , quality and quantity of content, world size, etc. with other MMOs of that era, and Vanguard looks pretty good.  If I had a time machine, I'd go back, put some of the money we received in savings for a rainy day, and then cut one of the continents out (probably Kojan, although Kojan looked the best and that would have been a bummer), and we probably could have released a polished and optimized game in early 2007.  But that wasn't what happened and we ended up releasing before we could polish and optimize the game. The vast majority of players computers were not powerful enough to play Vanguard at a playable frame rate.  The vast majority of Vanguard players left by level 2-3 not because they didn't like the game but because it was simply unplayable.  Talk to the people who came back to the game after it was optimized and you'll find a passionate group of players who loved Vanguard and played it almost non-stop the entire 7 years the game was up.

    Now, with Pantheon, our new MMO, we put together a small group of veteran MMO developers.  Unlike Vanguard, we're not trying to make a mainstream game; rather, we're making a smaller more focused game with a target audience.  Who is the target?  Players who enjoyed EverQuest 1 and Vanguard's challenge, but who also want a lot of new modern features as well (e.g. they don't simply want a re-hash of an older MMO).  

    So we've learned from our mistakes, are funding the project via the crowd (which, as of late when we moved the funding to our own site, has done very well).  We are also in talks with several angel investors who want to see Pantheon become a reality as well. Pantheon is going to look great, but we're not going for the latest and greatest in technology like we did with Vanguard -- we've learned from games like WoW, an MMO that looked good at release and didn't push the technological boundaries like we did, making it so that almost everyone could play and have a great time right away.  We are confident that a relatively small but very passionate audience of MMO gamers who want the challenge of older MMOs, who want to enjoy grouping and overcoming challenges together, working as a team, want a game like Pantheon to be developed.

    So please, head to www.pantheonrotf.com and learn about the game.  Become part of the community.  Share ideas.  Add to the wiki.  Chat with other likeminded MMO players about the future of the MMO genre.  And if you like what you see and hear, please help us make this game by pledging some money towards it.

    thanks,

    -Brad

    --

    --------------------------------------------------------------
    Brad McQuaid
    CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
    www.pantheonmmo.com
    --------------------------------------------------------------

  • GorillaGorilla Member UncommonPosts: 2,235
    I've always wondered whether Vanguard was making key milestones on time and on budget? Unsurprisingly backers often have a change of heart if those criteria are not being met.
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