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Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen
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What, seriously? I mean if what you say is true and he was indeed involved in developing the Oculus (in addition to EverQuest, Van-Guard, Star Wars: The Game), that's all the more impressive, i had no idea whatsoever. Does this man ever get any sleep LOL. But then i don't really know, man. Why would the current game need any external funding, didn't the OR get sold to Facebook for quite a hefty sum? Not sure what to think about that
His track record with the finances of Vanguard and his drug related disappearances not withstanding, heh? Granted, a past doesn't necessarily define the future, but it helps with making educated guesses.
People can believe what they want. I don't go out to try and change people's opinions. My only goal is to explain my side of the story, from the inside. Take what you want from it and believe what you want.
The project began when Brad went to Rerolled.org and started advertising and asking for thoughts and opinions from the dedicated Everquest forum. The responses in the beginning were mostly positive with a few Vanguard haters in the mix. When the Kickstarter first launched it was met with fierce opposition as it was poorly started with very little content. As time went on and hardly any new information came, we came to realize that these people were completely incompetent.
Skip ahead and the Kickstarter fails and Brad launches his website where he takes direct donations directly into his PayPal account. They did shows for a month or so, but again no real information or progress came from the development other than some lore stories. The project had taken in 145k dollars and all we had to show for it was some lore stories and a base Unity engine with no custom art assets. The original team claimed that Brad took a large chunk of the money for personal use and that was later verified by Brad himself in a statement. Brad claimed he took a cash advance of 45k which included work done from September before the Kickstarter launched. No other team member got an advance and were paid via small contracts. Brad was and still is the only employee of Visionary Realms. Some members of the original team claim that they were not even paid fully for their contracts and assets purchased. The original developers left.
A new era started with all volunteer amateurs working their hearts out, amateur era begins. These amateurs had no experience in the gaming industry, but tried to learn what they could on the fly. While I was in this amateur group I took notice of the complete lack of leadership. Brad would hardly log in to chat with the team and we were left in the dark over and over while still trying to produce content. It got to the point where I would only see and speak to Brad maybe once a week, in the meantime he was off riding his dirt bikes. Some of us were on TeamSpeak every single day for hours getting stuff done. None of us ever received a dime from the donations that came in even after Brad promised to help pay us as funds came in. The money pot raised from 145k to 155k and still we were shown no money. Later Brad came out and said that the website hosting was costing all the money. About a week after his comments, the host of the website came out and said that in fact, he was hosting the website completely for free and had no idea why Brad said what he did.
Some of the amateur devs left and we move into the Sparkling era. I was there when she first joined the team and from my very first conversation with her I realized she was not stable and had significant issues. I expressed my concerns to the team and got nowhere. I ended up leaving and the team was handed over to Sparkling. She immediately started changing lore from the original team, which was the only good thing the original team did. Gone were the evil gods and races and in were the fanatic religious beliefs. The team was altered significantly and her team was brought in. Some progress was made on systems, but the lore was in a massive decline in my opinion. Time after time Sparkling posted anti-gay, anti-atheist comments on her Facebook account and stirred up a lot of controversy. Some cared, some didn't, and frankly all I care about is the progress on the game. Some progress was made, but ultimately the negative PR was too much and Sparkling stepped down to be replaced by Joppa.
Enter the current era. The team is still mostly complete armatures with no experience in gaming. The progress is coming, but it’s rudimentary at best. This project is going to take up to 12 million dollars by Brad's own admission. They plan on doing another crowd funding project in the near future, but that won't raise nearly enough to produce the game. At this point, just like with the Kickstarter, they are asking for your money to pay their bills, not to produce assets for the game. I'm not interested in paying an amateur developers salary while they work on a project. Indy projects happen all the time and they don't ask their fans to pay their rent while they work on it. Over 150,000 dollars was given to this project and all we have to show for it is Unity store assets and broken promises. The lore is worse than it was months ago and the systems are barely an improvement. If you want to donate to this project, feel free, but know that your money is going towards paying people's living expenses not the game itself. I wish people would pay me to not work and sit around my house self-teaching myself Unity...
Let's not forget the bottom line. This project will require 12 million. NO crowd funding is going to raise anywhere close to that so they will have to still sell their soul to an investor. Your money means nothing but food on the table.
Oh my goodness. First you think for some reason that Brad created Rift and then you somehow take him talking about the OR in an interview as him also creating it? Wow.
Anyway. I think Pantheon could " look " good enough now if they redo the moving and attack animations and then add clothing physics. I think clothing / hair physics are just being forgot about in games today. The power is there but for whatever reason devs are going all out to get the best screenshot graphics and not the best playing graphics.
I suspect that once they believe the game is ready for people to jump in and playtest they will put Alpha access on one of the backer tiers on their site and also do another kickstarter along side of it. I bet they would get a good amount of money coming in at that point. I personally wouldnt do more than a $50 tier for alpha access though.
It's hard to believe in this project after what transpired so far. Sorry to the vocal minority Vanguard fanbase but most of planet earth thought that game was complete garbage. Pantheon has to be a hundred times better then Vanguard with 1/50 the budget and I just don't see it happening.
People love to forget but it took many great minds to make EQ Classic and all those bridges have been burned by Brad himself. He needs people as talented as his Music Composer working on every aspect of the game and he just doesn't have that kind of talent on the current team.
yeh .. even the website has nothing ... not even a proper write-up (not to mention screen shots, animation ...) of the classes.
I don't support KS ... and this one is more even pathetic than most.
No, i think Aradune has made it pretty clear that he himself wasn't involved in Rift, but a couple of his friends were, who, if i understood correctly, are now on his team, working for him on Pantheon. And you cannot fault him for that, it's a wise business decision to surround yourself with industry veterans. Richard Garotte is a name we're all familiar with here, he and Aradune made a deal to exchange capes and shawls with emblems of their respective games earlier this year (might have been late 2013).
Now, with regard to the Oculus Rift, i have no idea which role he played in its development. Call me a skeptic, but so far i haven't seen any evidence which would support this rumor, unless he got screwed over really bad in the deal, and didn't receive any of that Facebook money.
Food on the table, is the f***ing point.
The largest cost in game development, by far and away, is ... salary.
Not game engines, which are now very inexpensive, not art software, which is pricy but not more than a month salary for one person, not lawyers, nor hardware, nor any kind of digital asset.
Salary, is what drives game development. You can rightly complain about leadership skills, choice of toolset, design direction, and a dozen other things, but what makes it happen is a roof over some nerd's head, and food in his geeky mouth, and not anything else.
It's perception. The money all goes to Brad and then if he feels charitable, will throw a bone someones way. Very few people are given any money at all even though they put in countless hours. The donated money was for Pantheon development not to pay their bills. You're arguing that they are one in the same and that's ridiculous. There is one member of Visionary Realms. The rest are contractors that don't get paid. On their next crowd funding, let's see them come out and say "All donations go towards helping pay Brad's personal bills" and see how much they raise...
i hope brad has gotten clean, not just for the sake of the games and gamers but also of course for him and his family if he has any.
**if** the game comes along, and no more funny biz is reported over, lets say a year, then maybe i'll crowdfund his game. i did love eq after all. but that's a big if.
i wanna give the company money to develop the game, and as of this moment i'm not sure if my donation will go there or just to buy another bottle of percs.
i will be following however and hope the best for brad. i really do want to kickstart this if i see some sort of progress, both in the game and in brad.
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
I still dont think you understand anything that you are saying. He never said the friends that he has that worked / works on Rift are now helping him with Pantheon. Maybe they volunteer when they can but he didnt say they were helping him just that he knows people that worked on Rift and that he didnt when someone said that he created Rift. And throwing Richard Garriotts name in this is very weird and means virtually nothing.
Brad had nothing to do with OR.. Nothing at all. So there is no rumor to it and the only suggestion of it came from someone that was seriously misinformed in this thread.
You have missed my point. I would agree that the project does not look like a strong one, and, IMHO, the Kickstarter ask was very weak. That the ask was a weak one should have been obvious, just compare the ask to successful campaigns and see if the ask is strong enough. My point has nothing to do with Pantheon or Mr. McQuaid at all.
Gamedevs need to eat. And, they need somewhere safe from rain to plug in their PC hardware, something better than the local Starbucks. When you give money to a game under development, you are playing for the developers time to be spent making the game. That means rent, and food, and yes, even medical bills. If the game is good, and the development is swift and well done, then it's worth it to see the project happen. If the game sux and the management is bad, then not. Either way, the money needs to go to salary, whether that is an employee, or contractors, it does not matter. Their time is what you are paying them for. That is my point, not the particulars of any given project.
Anyway, peace, and thanks for the insight on how the project has gone.
Fair enough. This particular project has 162,000 listed as their donations on the website. Of that money almost zero was paid to the current developer team. Even since the original team left, at most they took 100k combined. So we are here looking at 62,000 donated since March? Of that money, next to nothing goes to the team... Of course if the company had employees that were being paid a wage and working 40 hours a week, things would be different. Sure part of the money needs to pay the devs a salary, but in this case, there are no employees and this is a volunteer project. Brad's bills are paid, how about everyone else? How about Canadina, Nirrtix, Kyndread? How much combined were these guys given for the months and countless hours of work they put in?
As a former Dev Nirrtix I would like to throw my view into the ring....
I started in the Dev game there as a mod just before the Sparkle era. Sparkle as mentioned was a character. I let it go as it did not at the time seem to affect me or the game. Then I started to hear about changes to the game like Removal of the Revanant class and adding Teddybears. Her lore consisted of 8 good gods and one "neutral god" (which does not sound like Everquest at all.) This was all bizarre but I tolerated it until as mentioned above Sparkle on her personal facebook page started posting radical stuff, like telling people not to trust their doctor, and anti GLBT stuff. People have a right to their opinions, but that was where I drew the line.
I protested her stances several times to no avail. She claimed she took the original thread down, which I messaged to Brad a week previously. I know Brad is busy, but that is something devistating that could end his game. Sparkle cared very little for the games community often dissing them when they disagreed with her. IF you sign up for the site look up the 3 strikes thread, where she shouts down some community members wanting to know what their investment is making. Problem is that many of us invested toward the kickstarter dream, not what sparkle was making.
When I left I posted a thread linking Sparkles posts on facebook and giving my goodbye. I wanted the community to know who was making their game. When I did so, it was deleted. I reposted it and it was deleted again and I was turned light blue (meaning my $250 investment was taken away for telling the truth without disclosing the NDA I signed.) I turned my information over to the rerolled.org site here. I posted the information to members on their profiles, then they locked my account.
After doing that I was IP banned. I do not get why they IP banned me. I could only look at the Pantheon site with my account locked. I could not even see private information..
Look at the Pantheon site at their wiki etc for lore. errors all over. This is totally unprofessional. I do not know about the $45000 issue I do not know all the facts behind that. I jsut know what was told by Brad and the others. I can tell you he (as he is the only true employee of Visionary Realms) robbed me of $250 for telling the truth about the game. Sad thing is until I breached the NDA to rerolled all of the information I gave was free on their site leaked by Brad, Radash and others.
For those unfamiliar with Visions:
Visions is the game that Sparkle has been working on for 9 years. Currently it is in Alpha...
http://www.visionsgame.com/
People listen to those of us who have been on the project. Brad always promises things like to be more active with the community. Then he is MIA for a month and posts once. He was hard for many of us devs to get a hold of.
I did the right thing, actually to help Pantheon as Sparkle was dooming the game. The game still has an uphill climb to be finished. With someone other than Sparkle in charge is a step in the right direction, but with how I was treated, would you invest in this game? The devs promise me I will be allowed back. When is that? They say Brad is mad at me. Brad I invested into your game. I guess my point is either allow me back or send me a check for $250. Do not tell me with that huge mansion built on Everquest money you do not have $250.
-Nirrtix (Former Pantheon Mod)
If you are indeed who you say you are then I doubt you would be hired back considering how many NDA and contract violations you have admitted to committing. Get no sympathy from me your lucky if all you loose is 250, and I cant really see believing anything you say if you cant even keep your word.
Playing Fallen Earth.
Lunchbox.... invest in Pantheon if you want. It will be your loss, I already lost mine. This is more about Principle... There have been many others that Brad banned and took thier investment too... KTAM is a good example. He was never a mod or released NDA. What KTAM did to was report on the game the good, the bad and the ugly. I did not care for his way of reporting the news seemed like a witch hunt and he was always looking for the bad. He invested well over $1000 in fact last I heard it was more like $3000. He lost his investment for disagreeing with Brad. He was never part of the team, he was simply a member of the community that disagreed, and vocally. To say I was ever hired could not be true, as I was never paid...
Brad calls us volunteers, but he does have a few people he pays for "living expenses." Ironically those who are not paid are his hardest workers.
Anyhow Brad took my investment before I released the NDA... the releasing of the NDA was the inherent result of his banning my account.
OP
1. Brad had nothing to do with Rift.
2. The matter of the $45,000 was not taken to court, so to say a court says it was legal is impossible. I am not saying it was or it was not, but without it going to court how could one make the claim. Fact of the matter is people do not trust Brad because of it.
-Nirrtix
Not true at all you can basically make a mmorpg for nothing.. costs only start coming into it when you need large servers for people to play on.. other than that everything else could be free if you wanted.
Caldrin you would have to pay people to make the game.... Pantheon is going to be a HUGE world (if it is made)... IT will need many servers...
The other underlying problem few look at is that Pantheon is made by volunteers. Do you think if a volunteer like our former graphics artist got a good paying job that they would stay working on this long shot work for free job? I wouldnt. I only stuck around as I was a website mod. My job was never meant to be paid and I never expected it.
-Nirrtix
Integrity.
When the Kickstarter failed, the project should have been put on hold until the team had something more substantial to show (than a bunch of ideas hastily scribbled down on napkins) and relaunched with a clearer vision of the direction of both the company and the game.
When you have people donating money directly to your project under the premise that it is going to be used to fund 'game development', paying yourself a 'cash advance' is not cool. Your living expenses are not our concern, and money given in good faith to fuel the development of the game should not have been earmarked for personal expenses. VR is meant to be a start up company. Pay yourself when your company has a direct source of income, don't be skimming cash from the donation slush fund.
If you can't afford your living expenses while getting this whole thing off the ground, then you should have never started the project to begin with. Or at least gotten a job so you could pay your own bills, instead of paying yourself advances off the backs of the poor schlubs that are fool enough to give you money.
Integrity.
that is just silly. How are you going to get million dollars worth of work done free? with good quality control?
I would love to see you show me how that is done.
This project can't even get a good website together with video and stuff. A real game? really?
The era of 3 or 4 folks working part time to deliver a full fledged working game is long past, MMO's are serious business and they require the proper funding and support to deliver with sufficient features and quality that the market has come to demand.
I can't think of any modern MMO that has delivered successfully on a shoe string, even titles such as MO and DFO had much more funding than most kickstarter MMO campaigns do, and they continue to struggle for it.
I supported CU, but still have my doubts regarding its success changes though they did scrape up about $5M so perhaps with their limited scope it will be possible.
SC of course has $58M, now there's a title that has a strong chance of success, not many other do, IMO at least.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
So much drama. Well there's no such thing as bad publicity they say! Not sure that is ALWAYS true but these threads with the drama from the anti-Brads etc etc hopefully get more people aware of the game.
Pantheon! HooRah!
SlyLoK, no misunderstanding, we're on the same page, i only mentioned the man behind Shrewd of the Avatar to make clear that Aradune is not a nobody in this business and will always get support from other bignames. The cross-selling deal i was referring to was about both of them exchanging clothes in-game, it made quite the news a while ago, google it if you doubt it.
As for the Oculus Rift, again, we agree, an unsubstantiated rumor. IF he had anything to do with that device AT ALL, it couldn't have been all that much, else we'd have seen his name on google-news during that Facebook takeover, don't you think?
What i wasn't aware of is that the Rift developers would volunteer to help make this game, though. Here you seem to know more, so let me ask you, do we know any names yes? Is Scott Hartmens on the team, by chance? I'm asking because he, along with his work on Rift, made quite a difference in EQ2 back in 2007 (Kunark expansion), some say he made the game fun to play again, just imagine him AND Aradune Mithara working their magic together on Pantheon.
SC is an exception, and they have more than just a horrible website. I think they have a good chance of putting out a decent game (with $58M, a decent dev should be able to do that).
However, personally i am not going to spend a dime unless there is actually a game. If a game can whip up $58M on KS, it does not need my dime. If it cannot whip up anything, then i am not risking even a cent. Either way, there is no point for me to KS anything.
SC and the other old-school games have well made websites. Pantheon has a horrible site by many of the devs admissions errors all over, and it looked sloppily made. When it was updated by Kyndread it looks better, but he cannot fix all the bugs etc.
Pantheon at this point has about 4 or 5 devout members of their community. Many of the devs who have been around for a long time are doing it as a secondary job to get "paid," although anyone who follows the game knows that will not happen. The game will not get funding due to it's history with or without Sparkling.
Brad with all his chitchat refuses to face the truth... his dream died when the money disappeared. It does not matter why it disappeared. IT could have been a poor business decision (do you want that person managing your investment,) ot it coulf have been fraud (I definately do not want that person managing my investment. ) I am not going to say I know why, it does not matter.
Sadly I was invested on his website on day 1...... so I was stuck in the mess... I wanted to look for the best in everything, but instead usually found more things I should have been questioning.