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Would you back Pantheon if...
ragz45
Member UncommonPosts: 810
Was thinking about what VR could do to get a lot more people excited about backing this project. What if they were to take the assets & code they have done so far and made a temporary playable zone, one that gave you a real idea of what the end product will be like. It wouldn't even have to be large, just enough to get your beak wet.
If the end product was good, would that be enough to get you around your Brad bias and back a game you might be on the fence about?
Comments
This have been a good conversation
Nah.
Got nothing to do with Brad, just this whole kickstarter idea is a bad one. Sure there will be some success stories but there will also be the nightmares. If someone wants me to buy something I need to see the finished article.
What would you say to a car salesman who asked you for 20k and showed you a truck full of parts? "Oh sure, we'll have this built in no time Mr Dumbass-with-too-much-money. Now if I could just have your credit card number". Would you buy that?
I wouldn't.
If it was a $40,000 truck and he was only charging 20k, and he had a history of delivery on the product, then yes I might be interested.
Nope.. but really come on...it is not like people do not know what type of game he wants to make even if he had unlimited funds, and all the skill to pull it off.
There is way more to the idea not getting funding, than just some bias against a person. Lot of that sure... but the game idea is just not that popular, i would say.
May be proved wrong if the game gets built and does well. But i would be surprised.
Actually 'kit cars' have been around for decades and sell well enough to keep the makers of the kit in business year after year.
http://www.factoryfive.com/order-a-kit/international-orders/australia/
http://www.autosource.com.au/car-kitcar-manufacturers.php
Also fixed wing aircraft and helicopters can also be purchased in kit form.
The difference is that the kit cars are complete and functional at the time of sale. My friends and I have built two of them. Had the salesman said "We plan to include these pieces in the kit but we haven't made them yet," we would have never bought either one. That's neither here nor there, however, since your example has nothing to do with what he wrote, which is the promise of a finished product being delivered in the future for money today.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
This is basically what they are doing. They are taking the few zones that they have and building out a handful of classes. They probably intend to demonstrate how the game works, its combat, its art, the way progression works, and probably a dungeon or two. That is what will become available to players who back the game in early alpha, and what will probably be made available to people at game conferences.
Everquest and Vanguard were GREAT games for me.
I trust in Brad's ideas for games.
I hope Pantheon will be a good game like Eq and Vanguard.
But... it can be a good game, but it needs a powerfull community behind.
This is basically what our Alpha will be for in a few months. We are working towards a level 1-10 playable zone or two with one class from each of the holy trinity (Tank, Healer, Dps/CC, that is our goal anyway, we have mentioned this on several occasions via our official forums and our official Facebook account
.
We will have a pre alpha for those that pledged for the higher level tiers also but we are not ready just yet, it will be a few more months before we announce when we will be good to move forward with this.
Sure, but can this argument finally go away? I'm really sorry, but the whole "Kickstarter is just a tool for scammers" bit is getting a little old by now. If you don't want to back something, that's great, but people act like these games don't deliver when they are currently doing nothing BUT delivering. I think it's a testament to consumer education that the rate of success of these projects is much higher than when it initially launched. We're even seeing ACTUAL MMORPGs come out of KS, which is a pretty big deal. Why? Well, it means either people are living on bread crumbs (and are passionate about what they're building) or they're getting much better at lean development, which means MMORPGs become cheaper to build, which means we may see riskier AAA titles. Then again, maybe you enjoy playing the same grinder over and over again and coming onto forums to complain about it.
Crazkanuk
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I'm with you, man.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I thought that was what paid alpha/beta was for. I mean isnt that what modern MMO's have been doing all a long?
I for one will not want this game to mimic how Brad made Vanguard out to be. Make it complete, and then release it. They can take all the time they want. Even still Vanguard is one of my top MMO's i've played, so I dont want them to screw it up.
I'd back it when it's a released and final product, if what is with the shipped product appeals to me. I'm done paying for alpha/beta/early access/kickstarter/whatever.
I have no problem with companies doing so - they gotta make money any way they can, but I have had my share of buying promises and getting exactly what I paid for in return.
H-Hour: World's Elite earned $252,662 regretfuly the developer has yet to publish a game. This game is probably vaporware at this point.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1687497632/h-hour-worlds-elite-0
LA Game Space earned $335,657 and was supposed to deliver in 2013. While the group is alive and kicking, they still don't have a space to call their own. That was a big reason behind their Kickstarter.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lagamespace/la-game-space-a-place-for-re-imagining-video-games
Code Hero earned $170,954 yet there is nothing to show for it.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/primerist/code-hero-a-game-that-teaches-you-to-make-games-he
Yogventures earned $567,665 but this game is completely dead in the water.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/winterkewlgames/yogventures
Greed Monger earned $90,132 and as it has been advertised on this very site, the game will never surface. Another one you can stamp 100% vaporware.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/appleton/greed-monger-a-crafting-focused-sandbox-mmorpg
Clang earned $526,125 and this game is now 100% vaporware outside of a (supposedly) horrible demo.
http://kotaku.com/neal-stephensons-kickstarter-game-is-dead-1636526717
I'm noticing a trend here. Please, remind me of an MMO that was funded through Kickstarter (or another crowdfunding source), that has released, and is a huge success?
I will not say that Kickstarter will not produce some successes in the industry, but the majority of the projects on KS are complete rubbish. I personally will not fund anything on Kickstarter.
First of all, Pantheon wasn't funded through kickstarter, nor is it trying to at this point.
Second, there is only 1 mmorpg to speak of that is a failed kickstarter, and we're talking about 100k in donations. Considering thats about 1/50th of what it took to develop an mmo 20 years ago, I don't think anyone is really surprised on that one. Meanwhile, the actual MMORPGs that funded on kickstarter are mostly looking promising, and much more promising than the AAA games currently in development. Oh wait, there aren't any triple A games in development that we know about except for a few rehashed games from the East.
It sucks that the MMO industry is in such a dire situation after the big companies, all with one accord, decided to try and replicate WoW and its casual philosophy for the last decade. Finally people start putting their asses on the line to make something different that they're actually passionate about, and people take every opportunity to shit on those folks for selling pre-orders or asking for donations like they are robbing banks and holding children hostage.
Get a grip, or are you really happy with the current state of affairs in this genre?
Thats because it failed. Though I'm sure you're well aware of the Kickstarter that wasan't for Brad and company.
http://www.polygon.com/2014/2/22/5437134/pantheon-rise-of-the-fallen-fails-to-meet-kickstarter-goal
As we all know, Visionary Realms, Inc. took the crowd source responsibility into their own hands. Which, in my humble opinion, is an even larger risk than tossing it at something that is (loosely) regulated.
Give it time. I would be shocked if there aren't more that will follow the path of Greed Monger. There will be a few success stories, and some inbetweeners as well.
Some do look promising, I'll give you that. I'm just not taking a gamble with my money, I'll let others do that for me. If the finished product is good, I may jump in.
With the examples given, I think I have proven a point. If you want to go one step further, consider the fact that MMO's are a lot more complex than the KS games I listed, along with the fact that they cost a whole lot more to develop for many obvious reasons.
I don't necessarily have a direct issue with crowd sourcing. I just feel that if someone is going to blatantly state that they're "tired of hearing how its nothing but a scam", well, truth is there are a lot of scammers out there looking to earn a quick buck. Also, I was there for Vanguard: SOH, and even if I were to spend a dime on a crowd sourced game (I wouldn't), anything with Brad at the helm leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth.
History does have a tendency to repeat it self. So, will Pantheon be a repeat of EverQuest, or Vanguard? I wouldn't ever put my money on that bet, regardless of my personal feelings over crowd sourcing.
Actually you should go back and read the section I highlight above, also if you had to assemble them with the help of friends how were they "complete and functional" before that?
jmcdermottuk made a bad analogy and you seem to want to extend it a whole new direction. Now I am not a fan of kickstarter donation schemes but can we stop with the silly analogy?
What about these guys? They were a guild in Mortal Online.
Several weeks later they became Forsaken Studios.
Did a kickstarter. Took the money and closed shop.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/806/Embers-of-Caerus.html
http://www.entropiapartners.com/?r=22415
And I say, what game? There is no game....
Just a bunch of feature lists and promises and hype.
No game, not a real company, no money.
I can't understand why this site even covers this game.
Right. A game in development isn't a game. Those are some real sharp observation skills you got there.
As far as money is concerned, their situation is no different than millions of companies before them, including the most successful.
Fortunately for us, mmorpg is probably interested in a game being made by the creative director of THE game that put this genre on the map. [mod edit]
No I would prefer to just wait until the game was out and buy it then.
There are a lot of really good games out and soon to be released, I am not really confident that a small studio can make a great mmo so I don't see the logic in "backing it". My "backing" will be paying for it when I can see it is something I want to play and something I actually can play.
What would get me to back Pantheon? A finished game that's what. Why would more promises make me give them money?
Kickstarter needs to have new rules for different product types. For software the rule should be "prototype exists and is at minimum in an early beta state." A laundry list of features and ideas is not a game, it's a forum post. These indie companies have to start assuming some amount of risk. It's absolutely ridiculous that crowdfunding functions as a risk-free charity for businesses. That's not how business works and it's leaving donators high and dry.
Last I saw of Pantheon were some environmental scenes and a bear or two. Show me a game (it can be a bit rough - less rough than say Pathfinder tho) and then we can talk wallet.