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DO NOT INVEST IN PANTHEON!
Cheena
Member Posts: 21
Pantheon is a game made by Brad McQuaid. I believe in him and his dream. His money management issue is not why I say do not invest. That should raise your eyebrows.
Sparkle, Blueyedgator and the management team should be the reason.
-None have any experience at what they are doing.
-Their videos are so-so, and their team is all volunteer.
-They are training their website moderators to build the game.
-They have chased off some of their best worldbuilders
-They have since kickstarter taken out 2 races and factions one thing they promised was a key factor in game.
-Sparkle and her family own all but one server according to Radash a dev that is working on the game.
-Rumor has it the Revanant race and other things in the game have been made "less dark" to appease her style of what the game should be. Hence why the Revanant were replaced with Merpeople
Now compare this to Visions the MMORPG Sparkle (the woman under Brad in rank is making, key word making. she is working on BOTH at once!) Visions is a joke. Put aside that it is a Christian MMORPG. Read the site by her own words....
-in 9 years of Alpha her game has gone through 170 team members and presently have 15ish
-the game has had 3 builds scrapping all work each time.
- 3 of her family are working on both games simtaneously
- the game also has an all volunteer staff
See it for yourself... why did brad choose her to work as his second in command for Pantheon?
this is the kickstarter for visions, which shows her marketing skills too.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1799801709/visions-a-christian-mmorpg?ref=nav_search
there is more i mention this on the Pantheon site to mention that some might invest if they change some things.... instead they ban my account. I do believe in Pantheon, but the way it is run no way. Blueeyedgator the new associate producer (again with no experience) banned me without even a warning.
This is commonplace there. If you love them you are welcome, if you are not they will ban you.
Comments
They are asking for $58,700???? That is one person's wages for 1 year (yes I know it is being made by volunteers but I simply wanted to highlight how little money this is), and in stating this I am ignoring the fact that you have to double a wage to take account of the costs associated with employing someone.
How the hell are they going to make this game for $58,700? All I can imagine is that this is to cover expenses until such time as they have the game in such a state as to attract backers or to achieve a much higher target.
I will continue to steer well clear of KS until they start employing at least a little due diligence on the projects they allow on their site (and skim 5% of the funds off).
I know of many KS projects that were not like Star citizen and Camelot Unchained. Also Planetary annhilation is not a scam. My brother has donated to countless others that were not.
This game may not have started as one, it was originally real experienced developers and a real game planned. I still believe that. In the end it has become a joke. Granted they have found a few volunteer talent. Most of them have left for reasons I can only assume come to lack of pay or the new management team.
In the end I will not invest in this game, I actually have been on the fence for a LONG time. but I have friends who have invested decent case in the beginning.
I posted today asking these questions and they ban my account with no warning. Why not give me a partial answer or even a lie? It is simple, they have something to hide and are con artists as you said.
They have also taken out many things they promised in KS and some things in KS they made "Expansion" plans. What a joke. My friend was dumb enough to donate in the KS and then the site right after based on those promises.
I am assuming you watched the Visions demo video... That is Sparkle the woman who is second in command to Brad. Her marketing skills are beyond horrible. She is the main reason that Pantheon will fail, but the team that is learning on the job is the other.
Seriously? Some people just want to feel offended.
Hon my opinion of the game is not becuase of it's religions connotation it is becuase of it's quality of a game. I have said nothing offensive to Christians. This is about the development of both games, not the religiousness of the game. Please do not jump to conclusions. I am jsut saying that Pantheon's development cycle will be the same as Visions, not in lore or style, but taking 9 years to get to beta.
Since it is not about the religion I took out the word Christian describing what the game really is. My point was never about that. It was about how it is being made after 9 YEARS.
Do like I do, only buy games that are released. You know, like how you buy everything else.
Can I make an order for toilet paper? I need a stack by tomorrow.
Sure.
Where's my toilet paper? I'm all out?
We had some technical difficulties with the order and have set the production cycle back another year.
Wth? I need toilet paper now.
Sorry, but it's beyond our control.
Notice how much control you have if you merely wait for products to be released instead of hoping they'll get released. Supporting Kick Starters because you want to play a new game is just plain stupid. You reap what you sow.
Well it is no wonder there are possible laws being made over Kickstarter. I definatly will not invest in anyone who has a past history of shady dealings. I have invested in decent games there, but if i have not heard of anyone there i also will not give them my money.
Brad Mcquaid is toast in the gaming industry if he does not pulls this off I think. Right now he is mostly bringing these volunteers in on his name. People are coming to say "Hey I worked with Brad McQuaid." Not that it matters only older gamers typically remember Everquest. I do not think this game has a future and it iwll not get a dime from me on their site.
Personally I would call multiple threats of reports and then reporting people and droning on about reporting people a form of griefing.
I was just giving you the heads up.
I wasn't going to.
I'll watch this development and hope for the best, but they will have to do it without me.
Isn't it weird?
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
OMG. LOL. Normally I don't give small indie MMO attempts a hard time for their graphics but this looks like Asheron's Call 1 or something.
[mod edit]
Shame, I really wanted Pantheon to succeed and be decent but no way I will give them money now.
Yea, just like The Mighty No. 9 and Shantae: Half-Genie Hero KS projects.
Oh, wait...
Since when is Tuesday a direction?
No, that's Pathfinder. And it's a $100 buy-in, not $1000. Plus, I'd give the guys at Goblinworks the benefit of the doubt over Brad 'Norco-Man' McQuaid any day. Goblinworks is new and unproven, whereas Norco-Man has a fabulous track record of failure.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
#IStandWithVic
I've been involved with Pantheon since the beginning. Though the game has inexperienced devs lets not forget that 95% of the original EQ team had zero online gaming experience and made one of the greatest MMO's ever made. Honestly there's a lot of reasons to support and reasons not to. It just depends on the person.
Reasons to support Pantheon:
-MMO's are looking bleak for a very long time. When games like ArcheAge and EQNext are calling themselves sandboxes you know things are going to get worse before they get better.
-Brad made EQ Classic and left the moment Sony insisted on turning it into garbage, Project 1999 proves theres still a significant demand for such a game.
-Brad had alot of brilliant gameplay ideas, the dungeon design and class design in Vanguard was fantastic.
-The game is centered around grouping. Nothing else out there is or will be for many years to come
-Brad makes challenging, immersive PvE games, another lost art.
-The game is being made by gamers for gamers, not suits who only care about their quarterly statement.
-Pantheon will be almost entirely open world with few to no instances.
Reasons to avoid Pantheon:
-Brad is inconsistent and unreliable. After he left Vanguard before it even launched he went on a string of failed blogs and social media fails followed by returning to "save" Vanguard only to leave again in less then a month to work on EQNext for 1 month before leaving for modern EQ for a month. Sound confusing? That's because it is.
-I also got banned from the Pantheon forums for voicing constructive criticism. Really has more to do with the terrible mods the site has/had; such as, Canadina and Krydread(both of which were removed shortly after thankfully).
-Brad made Vanguard. It had a few great features but was 95% terrible
-Very little to show for Pantheon other then high developer turnover and money disappearing. All the screenshots and videos are stock Unity assets and the PC's were purchased from a 3rd party website for $99 each.
-The few supporters this game has are mostly left in the dark. Brad rarely posts and mostly sounds like a broken record when he does. He seems to be living in the past where Beta's were these big secrets until a few months before release but things don't work that way anymore, especially when overly loyal fans are paying for the entire game atm.
-Brad has a history of burning bridges with all his real life friends and running with the money, a pattern that continues to repeat with Pantheon.
The above are some of the facts surrounding this project. Fell free to draw your own conclusions.
We judge games based on the product not on the could a should a or might be.
I couldn't care less about experience ,imo the experienced people are the ones constantly giving us the same old because that is all they know how to do.As for teaching ,i taught myself the Unreal game engines and when i was really into it i was pretty darn good at making everything a game needs,so it is not tough for a veteran to teach people.You also need to remember he would not be teaching a broad array of ability but only the ability to work with the game engine and software they use.
Also i find nothing at all from Blizzard to be worth my time,well aside from Hearthstone but TCG have been a dime a dozen and ONLY the Blizzard name makes it popular.My point is again to point out that experience means almost nothing.
My only reason for not having any faith is that i don't think Brad will bring us anything new and at this point in my gaming career i need new and fresh or it had better have a lot of systems and depth.I could see me playing Pantheon like any other game now days,for a month or two then move on.I want to see a game developer create something with longevity and that plays liek a MMO not like a single player game with co-op raiding.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I like this (Visions), it's like a regular Kickstarter Kashgrab but with it's own religious nut job spin to draw in the loonies.
Maybe they should hit up the Westboro Baptist Church for some funding?