Pantheon and/or Saga of Lucima will change everything.

delete5230

Both are visions that are only on paper..........The only real question is can they produce a full mmo ?

If the answer is yes the lying and crap we've been feed the last several years will stop.  MMOs have taken a turn for the worst.  The industry had changed from a players market to a companies market.  Yes, a pure profit only market.   Any product should be " get what you pay for " at least 50% / 50%, not 70% / 30%.

THE FORMULA HAS CHANGED.  I truly believe no one asked for it.  False data feed to the public.

- Free-to-play has to stop.  It's a cancer that ate away all basic principles of what an mmo is.  It separates the playing fields from who has what on a common field of balance between communities.  Free-to-play is designed to catch the addicted gamblers to spend money with a lucky side effect to attract free loaders.......I'm sorry, this is a given.  How can this be disputed ?

- Small Easy Games, not mmos this has to stop to.  Developers are cashing in on thirty days worth of content.  Two quest per level of fun.  It's another cancer that is killing the base principle of community, the corner stone of what an mmo is.  It's an easy cheap ride for companies to make games like this.  Profit on box sales without the mmo player in mind.

Important :

Many like what we have now.  That's cool, in fact very cool we all have our own likes, but they are not mmos.  They are something else.  Something in another category with no clear definition separating Multi-player-online-rpg's from games with others around you.

Pantheon Rise of the Fallen, and Saga of Lucima are considered niche, catering to a minority group of social players.  I TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH THIS STATEMENT.  This is something that you people made up.  All seem to run with it.  

Both may fail because of poor development or lack of funding, but they will prove that community based games are what is needed.

AngryElf

Dragomon Hunter is the only true MMO

Mikeha

AngryElf said:

Dragomon Hunter is the only true MMO

/thread

Slapshot1188

I believe both games will fail.   Not because of the type of game, but because of the skill levels and resources of the development teams.

I mean, you seriously are pushing a game that has admittedly 100 players and a dev team that has ZERO, yes ZERO game development experience?   We all know Brad's history (good and bad) so no need to go there but at least that one has a CHANCE.

People need to stop reading "visions that are only on paper" and declaring those games as the savior of anything.   They will be lucky to reach launch (See Pathfinder Online)

Bloodaxes

I don't trust in games that haven't even started development and already post tons and tons of information to lure people in the hype train.

Kyleran

delete5230 said:

Both are visions that are only on paper..........The only real question is can they produce a full mmo ?

K>The odds are greatly against it.

- Free-to-play has to stop.  It's a cancer that ate away all basic principles of what an mmo is.  It separates the playing fields from who has what on a common field of balance between communities.  Free-to-play is designed to catch the addicted gamblers to spend money with a lucky side effect to attract free loaders.......I'm sorry, this is a given.  How can this be disputed ?

K> I suspect many who play F2P games and enjoy them will dispute your claim.  It's true, MMORPG's changed, but F2P was only a small reason they did so.  It actually appears F2P rescued many failing sub only titles, so not sure where you see the failure side of this?  (from a company perspective)

- Small Easy Games, not mmos this has to stop to.  Developers are cashing in on thirty days worth of content.  Two quest per level of fun.  It's another cancer that is killing the base principle of community, the corner stone of what an mmo is.  It's an easy cheap ride for companies to make games like this.  Profit on box sales without the mmo player in mind.

K>Wait, some titles like ESO cost over $100M to make, this is a cheap, easy ride?  Many of the Eastern titles may be like this, but certainly not all.  This new wave of indie games are attempting to make full featured MMORPG's with less than $10M, which group is going the cheap, easy route?

Important :

Many like what we have now.  That's cool, in fact very cool we all have our own likes, but they are not mmos.  They are something else.  Something in another category with no clear definition separating Multi-player-online-rpg's from games with others around you.

K> More important.  These titles, whatever you call them, have proven themselves to make money, which is all a developer cares about in the end, separating you from your money in the most efficient manner possible.

Pantheon Rise of the Fallen, and Saga of Lucima are considered niche, catering to a minority group of social players.  I TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH THIS STATEMENT.  This is something that you people made up.  All seem to run with it. 

K> Wait, they are both incorporating designs that have no evidence of financial success in the last 10 years, where is your evidence that these aren't catering to a minority.  Where's the huge amount of support for any existing titles that are still in play.  I'm sub'd to 6 accounts in EVE, so putting my money where my mouth is, but where's everyone else?

Both may fail because of poor development or lack of funding, but they will prove that community based games are what is needed.

K> If both fail for whatever reason, they won't be proving anything, least of all that community based games are "needed"

Look, I want what you do, more in depth MMO's that incorporate some of the designs of the past, but putting your faith in these smaller titles is going to lead to years of frustration and disappointment.

Very likely less than 5 kickstarter titles will amount to much of anything, and if one is even as successful as some of the early games such as EQ1 or DAOC I'll be pleasantly surprised.  (SC has the best chance of course) The rest will go down in the ashes of MMO history.

Dullahan

Slapshot1188 said:

I believe both games will fail.   Not because of the type of game, but because of the skill levels and resources of the development teams.

I mean, you seriously are pushing a game that has admittedly 100 players and a dev team that has ZERO, yes ZERO game development experience?   We all know Brad's history (good and bad) so no need to go there but at least that one has a CHANCE.

People need to stop reading "visions that are only on paper" and declaring those games as the savior of anything.   They will be lucky to reach launch (See Pathfinder Online)

Your tinfoil hat is showing. Please stop with the ridiculous comparison of your hobbyhorse (Pathfinder) with other games. It just makes you look like a nut. Just rein it in, buddy.

Regarding experience, many of the people working on Pantheon have experience working on or for video game companies, and those who don't, have expertise in a related area (art, programming, etc). Not a single one of them signed up having no related experience, and this is fairly obvious at this point by even what little we've seen (http://www.pantheonmmo.com/media/screenshots/).


As both a fan of Pantheon and an objective person, I have to disagree on one major point made by the OP. Pantheon will actually not be for everyone (though I think it will be much more popular than people think). They've even said as much. There are people who like modern MMOs. Some genuinely, some compromising for lack of a better option, and some having never played older MMOs. Nevertheless, many actually do not have the desire to play a game as involving as Pantheon. They just want a game, not a virtual world. They want fast, easy fun... and that's OK.

For the rest of us, there will be Pantheon.

Lyrian

The leading concern I have with both games is their 'Rebirth' system. Having/being forced to retire or "resoul" your character and start fresh with a few stat boosts makes me think that the game itself will be shallow and casual.

I somehow don't see a system that allows for a 100-200 hour character leveling process, turning around and saying "Great, you've reached the top. If you want to be better, restart again!" It'll fuel burn out and I feel is a shitty mechanic overall. If they can remove that system I might be better disposed to either game.

Distopia

One of the most important aspects of these games succeeding or failing is the players, That's the real trick to the type of game they want to create. Not only do they need to succeed in making a game that plays at a satisfactory level. They need to rely on players approaching it in an outgoing manner. Providing the most important content in the game, each other.

To me that is the biggest gamble they're backing. It's increasingly harder to find that type of person even in real life especially in comparison to 2003 and prior. We've had a major societal regression in terms of communication since the dawn of the social media craze.

Tikkun

What I find intriguing is the number of games that have similar backgrounds or systems: Pantheon, Saga of Lucimia, Revival, Sacrament, Project Gorgon, etc.  Most are being developed by independent development teams on their own time, with little or no major studio involvement ( Revival is an exception, though Illfonic might not be considered a 'major' studio by some ).

All emphasize some form of group-centric combat/exploration system.  All seem to rely more on  a skill based system rather than a level/class system (Pantheon and Sacrament do rely on classes rather than skills),  all are attempting to carve something into the crafting sphere that has been lacking in recent games.

Well they all succeed?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  But what they presage is a shift in the cycle of types of games being offered to the gaming public.  In the last decade or so, it does seem, that game development studios were on the lookout for that 'perfect storm' of game attributes that made a colossus out of World of Warcraft.  The sheer number of subscribers, and profits, seduced most, if not all, Western big game studios, to make the 'one game to rule them all'.  As WoW shifted it's focus to allow easier access to it's game, the others followed suit.  Thus, we do have the 'standard' game we now see: vast chunks are solo-able with some group activity required but not always essential.  Questing and quest hubs proliferate.  Coloured punctuation marks and paths litter the landscape.  In many cases challenge has been obliterated or simply re-configured to twitch skills such as jumping.  Clearly many people enjoy this form of entertainment.

 But over the years there has been a backlash to this type of system.  Hence, this newer trend to independently created, group-centric style gaming.  Is it 'niche'?  In all probability it is.  Is this a bad thing?  No.  The more choice the gaming public has, the more diverse the gaming public becomes.  If these games draw back or encourage new people to game, is this not something, we, as people who game want?  You or I may not agree on the type of games we enjoy, but, we clearly do enjoy to game.  The more people gaming, the more likely some group/team/studio will create 'the' game for you.

In my mind we should encourage this new growth in gaming.  Will people fail? Of course.  Most successful, self made people have gone bankrupt at least once or twice in their lives.  Failure is part of the process.  All one has to do is cast an eye at all the large gaming studios that have given up the ghost.  But, if one succeeds: ah there is the rub.  So lets encourage new attempts at creativity, innovation and design.  You are not obligated to financially support any of the games until you see a product you think you will enjoy.  We may be entering into a new 'golden' age of gaming made all the more glorious as it promises to produce games that appeal to, at least some people, rather than a studio's bottom line.

CrazKanuk

Kyleran said:

delete5230 said:

Both are visions that are only on paper..........The only real question is can they produce a full mmo ?

K>The odds are greatly against it.

- Free-to-play has to stop.  It's a cancer that ate away all basic principles of what an mmo is.  It separates the playing fields from who has what on a common field of balance between communities.  Free-to-play is designed to catch the addicted gamblers to spend money with a lucky side effect to attract free loaders.......I'm sorry, this is a given.  How can this be disputed ?

K> I suspect many who play F2P games and enjoy them will dispute your claim.  It's true, MMORPG's changed, but F2P was only a small reason they did so.  It actually appears F2P rescued many failing sub only titles, so not sure where you see the failure side of this?  (from a company perspective)

- Small Easy Games, not mmos this has to stop to.  Developers are cashing in on thirty days worth of content.  Two quest per level of fun.  It's another cancer that is killing the base principle of community, the corner stone of what an mmo is.  It's an easy cheap ride for companies to make games like this.  Profit on box sales without the mmo player in mind.

K>Wait, some titles like ESO cost over $100M to make, this is a cheap, easy ride?  Many of the Eastern titles may be like this, but certainly not all.  This new wave of indie games are attempting to make full featured MMORPG's with less than $10M, which group is going the cheap, easy route?

Important :

Many like what we have now.  That's cool, in fact very cool we all have our own likes, but they are not mmos.  They are something else.  Something in another category with no clear definition separating Multi-player-online-rpg's from games with others around you.

K> More important.  These titles, whatever you call them, have proven themselves to make money, which is all a developer cares about in the end, separating you from your money in the most efficient manner possible.

Pantheon Rise of the Fallen, and Saga of Lucima are considered niche, catering to a minority group of social players.  I TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH THIS STATEMENT.  This is something that you people made up.  All seem to run with it. 

K> Wait, they are both incorporating designs that have no evidence of financial success in the last 10 years, where is your evidence that these aren't catering to a minority.  Where's the huge amount of support for any existing titles that are still in play.  I'm sub'd to 6 accounts in EVE, so putting my money where my mouth is, but where's everyone else?

Both may fail because of poor development or lack of funding, but they will prove that community based games are what is needed.

K> If both fail for whatever reason, they won't be proving anything, least of all that community based games are "needed"

Look, I want what you do, more in depth MMO's that incorporate some of the designs of the past, but putting your faith in these smaller titles is going to lead to years of frustration and disappointment.

Very likely less than 5 kickstarter titles will amount to much of anything, and if one is even as successful as some of the early games such as EQ1 or DAOC I'll be pleasantly surprised.  (SC has the best chance of course) The rest will go down in the ashes of MMO history.

You do understand that the watermark you're setting, right? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm saying that, for instance, DAOC only ever saw probably 250k subs and EQ maybe 500k. Neither really grew or sustained either. For all intents and purposes they both are in the ashes of MMO History. 

It should also be noted that some of the Kickstarter MMOs have over half the sales DAOC did at launch, and the game hasn't even been released. 

Also, what would "amount to anything" be exactly? Is that like last longer than the typical MMO today? What would that look like? Not really sure how you're defining success here. 

LacedOpium

I would have agreed with your premise much more wholeheartedly had you not attached any specific games to it.  I like the genre too much to have its future dictated by the outcome of these two games.  

Kyleran

CrazKanuk said:

Kyleran said:

delete5230 said:

Very likely less than 5 kickstarter titles will amount to much of anything, and if one is even as successful as some of the early games such as EQ1 or DAOC I'll be pleasantly surprised.  (SC has the best chance of course) The rest will go down in the ashes of MMO history.

You do understand that the watermark you're setting, right? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm saying that, for instance, DAOC only ever saw probably 250k subs and EQ maybe 500k. Neither really grew or sustained either. For all intents and purposes they both are in the ashes of MMO History. 

It should also be noted that some of the Kickstarter MMOs have over half the sales DAOC did at launch, and the game hasn't even been released. 

Also, what would "amount to anything" be exactly? Is that like last longer than the typical MMO today? What would that look like? Not really sure how you're defining success here. 

Yes, I understand it's a low mark, and I doubt many of these kickstarters will even reach these figures, and remember, back in the day these figures represented a substantial proportion of the total MMORPG player base back then, today they represent much less of the total player base.

Ashes of MMO history? I would call both EQ1 and DAOC Legends of MMORPG world, with designs that people still long for and are still active today.

Sure, many kickstarters have high sales figures, mostly because they cost next to free and they don't bring in the sustained sub revenues that the earlier titles did (and let's not forget about expansion sales).  Of course I'll concede most newer titles rely on kickstarter funds, pre-sales of in game assets and  cash shop sales so comparisons can't easily be made.

Defining MMORPG success is difficult, but let's just say I think few kickstarter MMO's will actually launch with even 1/2 of the features of what I would consider a complete game.  Most will pre-launch early, with a shell of a game and hang on for years trying to improve it, a la Mortal Online or the like.

Millions served?  Not every likely, at least in my experience and opinion.

CrazKanuk

Kyleran said:

CrazKanuk said:

Kyleran said:

delete5230 said:

Very likely less than 5 kickstarter titles will amount to much of anything, and if one is even as successful as some of the early games such as EQ1 or DAOC I'll be pleasantly surprised.  (SC has the best chance of course) The rest will go down in the ashes of MMO history.

You do understand that the watermark you're setting, right? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm saying that, for instance, DAOC only ever saw probably 250k subs and EQ maybe 500k. Neither really grew or sustained either. For all intents and purposes they both are in the ashes of MMO History. 

It should also be noted that some of the Kickstarter MMOs have over half the sales DAOC did at launch, and the game hasn't even been released. 

Also, what would "amount to anything" be exactly? Is that like last longer than the typical MMO today? What would that look like? Not really sure how you're defining success here. 

Yes, I understand it's a low mark, and I doubt many of these kickstarters will even reach these figures, and remember, back in the day these figures represented a substantial proportion of the total MMORPG player base back then, today they represent much less of the total player base.

Ashes of MMO history? I would call both EQ1 and DAOC Legends of MMORPG world, with designs that people still long for and are still active today.

Sure, many kickstarters have high sales figures, mostly because they cost next to free and they don't bring in the sustained sub revenues that the earlier titles did (and let's not forget about expansion sales).  Of course I'll concede most newer titles rely on kickstarter funds, pre-sales of in game assets and  cash shop sales so comparisons can't easily be made.

Defining MMORPG success is difficult, but let's just say I think few kickstarter MMO's will actually launch with even 1/2 of the features of what I would consider a complete game.  Most will pre-launch early, with a shell of a game and hang on for years trying to improve it, a la Mortal Online or the like.

Millions served?  Not every likely, at least in my experience and opinion.

Measuring success is difficult. Today the supposed MMORPG population is like 20+ million. In reality, though, it's much smaller than that, or at least the D&D crowd, old school mmorpg player. I'm not completely convinced that market is any bigger and, in actuality, it's probably smaller than it was back when EQ was released. We can see it based on the genre and how it's moved away from traditional D&D rulesets, etc. Even D&D concepts. Remember when WoW had glancing blows? 

I'd say success is probably going to be gauged on initial reception, and longevity. Longevity might be a year these days, who can really say. 2 years? Feature lists are nice, but even AAA titles leave them out. SWTOR is still releasing features, ESO just released their capital city, so this isn't uncommon. I'm ok with an unimplemented feature list. Where something fails is if the community isn't invested enough in the game to allow the developer to finish those features, over time. 

Apparently SoL has a very dedicated user base already which is pretty cool considering the niche game they're making. Pantheon, I'm less sure about. Is it a good game or is it that people are in love with Brad McQuaid? Time will tell, I think it'll do well out of the gates, but it depends on how good it is, really. 

ste2000

Of those "Old School" MMOs currently in the making, only Pantheon might pull it off, and that's a big "might".
It is not that I don't trust Brad Mcquaid, I believe he learned from his mistakes, but games like Pantheon requires more resources than your average casual MMO, where most of the content is copy and paste.

Just keep in mind that many MMOs with huge budgets released  either unfinished, buggy or with missing features, so for a small budget game like Pantheon future does't look so bright.
I am sure Brad will do his best, but I doubt Pantheon wil be the AAA old school MMO we all waiting for, and for this kind of game to succeed it has to be a AAA MMO.

See, the problem with "old school" MMOs not working out compared to Casual games is not because those games are not popular but because of the huge discrepancy between the game on the paper and the actual finished product.

This gap is due for two reason:
The first is that are more expansive to make.
The second is because usually they are not well funded.
So you understand that if you are going to make a game that requires more resources than other games but instead has less money available, that spell disaster.

But there is a bif IF.
If Pantheon plays its card well and gather enough interest, it could end up like Star Citizens.
Now, if Brad Mcquaid could dispose of $ 50 Millions, I am sure he might be able to create a masterpiece, but I have doubts he will be able to secure those kind of funds, in particular if he insist in keeping the foums locked under a $15 fee, alienating potential customers.
They need to rethink their strategy.

Anireth

So, i didn't read anything but the title. But the title itself alone raises a question: If it can be "or, that means Pantheon may fail. Or Saga of Lucima may fail. But somehow, it's impossible for both to fail, despite evidence (as in, the last 100 MMOs released or so) to the contrary?

Also took a quick look at the IndieGoGo campaign of Saga of Lucima. So they cite D&D, UO, EQ and WoW as what they aim for. Which means a game system that is quite hard to transfer to video games, let alone an MMO, a sandbox game, a theme park, and WoW, which is basically Everquest 3.0

And UO had nothing do with predefined group sizes or even group content per se.

High profile names (though Brad McQuaid isn't even one compared to Richard Garriot, Warren Spector or some other people) are hardly a guarentee for a good game, with evidence to the contrary.

So the most realistic outcome is that nothing at all will change because of those two games.

bcbully

Pantheon has a chance to at least be made. As for the other? I don't think so.

Utinni

Op is 80% of thread starts in pantheon forum. Starting to get suspicious.

nariusseldon

delete5230 said:

THE FORMULA HAS CHANGED.  I truly believe no one asked for it.  False data feed to the public.

- Free-to-play has to stop.  It's a cancer that ate away all basic principles of what an mmo is.  It separates the playing fields from who has what on a common field of balance between communities.  Free-to-play is designed to catch the addicted gamblers to spend money with a lucky side effect to attract free loaders.......I'm sorry, this is a given.  How can this be disputed ?

- Small Easy Games, not mmos this has to stop to.  Developers are cashing in on thirty days worth of content.  Two quest per level of fun.  It's another cancer that is killing the base principle of community, the corner stone of what an mmo is.  It's an easy cheap ride for companies to make games like this.  Profit on box sales without the mmo player in mind.

Important :

Many like what we have now.  That's cool, in fact very cool we all have our own likes, but they are not mmos.  

Wait ... you just said "many like what we have now" .. so why do "free to play" and "small easy games" have to stop? If many like them, are you saying because you don't, you want to take away what .. in your words .. "many like"?

That is just very selfish.

A simpler solution .. just don't play these games. 

Dauntis

SoL has already pretty much failed. The attitude of it's creators and it's lame name as well as the expectation of people to devote months to a single dungeon are all drawbacks. Pantheon probably has a better chance but looking at it's path so far will be a lame duck even if it does make release. Both could produce but with a very small audience and will most likely only last 6 months to a year before shutting doors.

Dullahan

ste2000 said:

Of those "Old School" MMOs currently in the making, only Pantheon might pull it off, and that's a big "might".
It is not that I don't trust Brad Mcquaid, I believe he learned from his mistakes, but games like Pantheon requires more resources than your average casual MMO, where most of the content is copy and paste.

Just keep in mind that many MMOs with huge budgets released  either unfinished, buggy or with missing features, so for a small budget game like Pantheon future does't look so bright.
I am sure Brad will do his best, but I doubt Pantheon wil be the AAA old school MMO we all waiting for, and for this kind of game to succeed it has to be a AAA MMO.

See, the problem with "old school" MMOs not working out compared to Casual games is not because those games are not popular but because of the huge discrepancy between the game on the paper and the actual finished product.

This gap is due for two reason:
The first is that are more expansive to make.
The second is because usually they are not well funded.
So you understand that if you are going to make a game that requires more resources than other games but instead has less money available, that spell disaster.

But there is a bif IF.
If Pantheon plays its card well and gather enough interest, it could end up like Star Citizens.
Now, if Brad Mcquaid could dispose of $ 50 Millions, I am sure he might be able to create a masterpiece, but I have doubts he will be able to secure those kind of funds, in particular if he insist in keeping the foums locked under a $15 fee, alienating potential customers.
They need to rethink their strategy.

A lot of truth in this post, but your numbers are off on necessary costs.

Today, the tools used to both create and integrate the art and the coding for MMOs are vastly improved in modern enginees. Despite its failures, Vanguard was the biggest MMO to launch in the recent history in both terms of world size and content initially available, and it was done for ~$30 million. The biggest shortcoming in that development process was reportedly the engine and its tools.

Now, using engines like Unity or Unreal, a large portion of that cost would have been deducted off the top.

All the advertising, short term solo content and fluff crammed into modern games has drastically inflated development costs. Games like Pantheon are possible for far less in 2015.

CrazKanuk

delete5230 said:

Pantheon Rise of the Fallen, and Saga of Lucima are considered niche, catering to a minority group of social players.  I TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH THIS STATEMENT.  This is something that you people made up.  All seem to run with it.  

Both may fail because of poor development or lack of funding, but they will prove that community based games are what is needed.

Who do you mean by "...you people..." when you're saying it's made up. The fucking Executive Producer of SoL said, "We also aren't worried about getting AAA sub numbers. We have a target goal that is quite small, and we are under no illusions about trying to hit AAA subs or even compare ourselves to them; we are niche ,and we know it.". Silly shit. 

So if by "you people" you mean every single person except you, then that's fine. You can live in your own world where these games aren't niche titles. In that reality, though, I guess they are liked by 100% of the people living in it (you and you alone). 

In fact, SoL makes absolutely zero claims to be a mass-market MMORPG. They say, specifically, that they're doing things the way they want and they don't care who objects about it. They aren't building it for them, they're building it for their community. They've said that they are developing the game to be operational with 10K subs, not AAA numbers. 

Burntvet

Slapshot1188 said:

I believe both games will fail.   Not because of the type of game, but because of the skill levels and resources of the development teams.

I mean, you seriously are pushing a game that has admittedly 100 players and a dev team that has ZERO, yes ZERO game development experience?   We all know Brad's history (good and bad) so no need to go there but at least that one has a CHANCE.

People need to stop reading "visions that are only on paper" and declaring those games as the savior of anything.   They will be lucky to reach launch (See Pathfinder Online)

Winner.

And "tin foil hat" man can stuff it: the devs for Pantheon have already said, multiple times, that if they don't get an investor, the game is toast. For a "company" that has never released anything. That does not garner much optimism.

As for the other one, the chances are even worse.

"Visions" and feature lists are not worth anything, without a lot of money and programming resources backing them up.

Kefo

Burntvet said:

Slapshot1188 said:

I believe both games will fail.   Not because of the type of game, but because of the skill levels and resources of the development teams.

I mean, you seriously are pushing a game that has admittedly 100 players and a dev team that has ZERO, yes ZERO game development experience?   We all know Brad's history (good and bad) so no need to go there but at least that one has a CHANCE.

People need to stop reading "visions that are only on paper" and declaring those games as the savior of anything.   They will be lucky to reach launch (See Pathfinder Online)

Winner.

And "tin foil hat" man can stuff it: the devs for Pantheon have already said, multiple times, that if they don't get an investor, the game is toast. For a "company" that has never released anything. That does not garner much optimism.

As for the other one, the chances are even worse.

"Visions" and feature lists are not worth anything, without a lot of money and programming resources backing them up.

Pantheon did get an angel investor though. They didnt mention how much but they did secure enough to put everyone on the payroll

ste2000

Dullahan said:

ste2000 said:

A lot of truth in this post, but your numbers are off on necessary costs.

Today, the tools used to both create and integrate the art and the coding for MMOs are vastly improved in modern enginees. Despite its failures, Vanguard was the biggest MMO to launch in the recent history in both terms of world size and content initially available, and it was done for ~$30 million. The biggest shortcoming in that development process was reportedly the engine and its tools.

Now, using engines like Unity or Unreal, a large portion of that cost would have been deducted off the top.

All the advertising, short term solo content and fluff crammed into modern games has drastically inflated development costs. Games like Pantheon are possible for far less in 2015.

$30 Million is the initial investment of Microsoft (not counting what SoE added to that amount), and all that money could not avoid Vanguard launching with a Continent unfinished (content wise), millions of bugs, very poor engine optimization.
Admittedly, Brad mismanaged the whole project, that's a fact, but I am sure he learnt the lesson.

Having said that, I agree that the availability of ready made engines like Unity helps with the costs, but my point is exactly this.
If you were to make your average Casual game with copy and paste content, then the Unity engine helps quite a lot.
But if you have to make a game with very peculiar and distinctive features like in the case of Pantheon, you are required to heavy modify the engine, which almost erase all the initial advantage.

When you include innovative features to a game, you need to add a person responsible to design specifically that feature and at least another one or two to develop it, while if you just use the built in features the Unity engine offers you don't need an additional team to take care of it.
If those innovative features are more than one, you can imagine how many more people are required to take care of their design and their development.

ceratop001

Bloodaxes said:

I don't trust in games that haven't even started development and already post tons and tons of information to lure people in the hype train.

Must agree with this statement.