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Transition to success
Samatman
Member UncommonPosts: 123
Hi everyone, I'm new in this sub-forum so please bear with me.
I play EQ, and have since 1999. I dabbled with Vanguard briefly as a beta tester but had to stop due to lack of hardware when they shifted to DX10(?). I'm telling you this because you understand what my expectations are in a game re: game play and graphics. Now with the persistence of EQ in doubt I started looking around and discovered Pantheon. I watched the November update video and was impressed with the music!, graphic design, and animation for a game in pre-alpha. I then listened to the Developer round table from January. I was really impressed with what sounded like a lot of passion and ability.
Then I went to the Pantheon forums and read a lot of stuff that really had me confused. Failed kickstarter? How were they developing this without money? Why are there posts from the community manager calling it a train wreck and stating that he'd be surprised if anything ever got made at all (the "3 strikes you're out" thread which I don't even want to link to). That thread is also referred to here in this forum and apparently has a lot of deleted content in it regarding Laurene/Sparkle, because it made no sense to me.
So I read more and I get it. There were issues, supporters felt betrayed, devs left, devs returned, and now they are actively developing to get to a point where they can take what they've got to potential investors. And they're doing all this development without money.
Before I had read all of the forums, I really liked what I saw, liked the intended direction of the game play, loved the music, and was ready to buy in as a supporter. But then I see all this train wreck stuff. I'm trying to figure out if this guy is really the community manager, and of course he is. Well the bottom line is that's not really rousing support if the people who are developing the game have feelings like that. So I didn't buy.
Clearly Pantheon is in transition. I get it that if what they produce this year doesn't generate investment, it will fail. It just seems to me that they are on a path to produce a game that I'd want to play. And if the dev team is doing this for free, the only motivator for that is passion for what you're doing.
Obviously I've missed all the drama here so maybe that's a good thing. Maybe the Pantheon forums need some cleaning up too because train wrecks don't get funding.
Comments
This.... his recent past and less than recent past both don't engender belief that he can manage a project like this. He would be great as a less minor player on a MMO dev team in regards to his vision etc. But from what I hear he has a massive ego, and no one that I know that has worked with him has had good things to say. (and I know a few)
Pantheon has a new CEO
pasted from the Pantheon forums
"
Chris Rowan (Kuripan)– CEO
Chris earned a degree in International Marketing from Santa Clara University, graduating cum laude in three years, then worked at an advertising agency in Paris. Next, in Tokyo, Chris completed graduate studies then joined the entertainment arm of Sony in Tokyo for 8 years where he started new businesses including the first online gaming site in Japan, and assisted the initial PlayStation efforts. He speaks, reads and writes Japanese fluently. In his free time, he coded and operated the first fantasy baseball game in Japan. After Sony, he was an early employee of IRI, a company key in building the Japanese Internet and mobile internet infrastructure. He managed IRI’s successful IPO and the company reached a $10B market cap. His next role was to handle strategic venture investing for IRI which led to him establishing and leading IRI USA. He went on to co-manage AvTech Ventures, a $150M portfolio of venture investments which achieved top decile returns. After AvTech, Chris assisted several startups in various roles from Chairman to CEO including JP SCOPE, HydroLogic and Riava. He also assisted MMO developer Sigil with its sale to Sony Online Entertainment.
Happily married for twenty years, he’s the proud father of a daughter in college and a teenage son. He enjoys online gaming, new technology, travel, camping, is an avid runner, cyclist and open water swimmer, and escapes by taking family hikes with his two dogs.
Samatman,
I've been with the Pantheon community since Pre-Kickstarter days. And it has most definitely had it's share of drama. It has transitioned development teams twice and now is currently on the 3rd. However, I can say without a doubt, Pantheon today is in the most capable hands it has been in since it's annoucement. The addition of Joppa really stabilized the team and removed most the drama. There is much more transparency now (although, I personally would still prefer more) and Kilsin, the community manager is a great asset and has focused the official forums. Although he is a fan of Pantheon, he's not a yes man/fanboi etc. and can handle critical feedback and is willing to ask and answer the difficult questions.
There's still a long way to go to be sure, but I'm more confident on a release now than I've ever been at any point in the development cycle.
And, for clarification to think I'm not white-knighting due to my account creation date, I could't remember my old MMORPG account so I created an account using a similar handle to my name Raidan over on the Pantheonrotf site.
the issue was never the game itself. its the fact that brad is bad with managing money, and the pantheon events showed that he didn't learn from his past mistakes. honestly i would be leery of investing money with him in charge of it......and damn well wouldn't donate via crowd funding.
it actually gives me some encouragement that pantheon has a new CEO as mentioned above. the more brad can concentrate on ideas (and therefore the less he needs to concentrate on all things fiscal) the better the game is gonna be.
my little hype meter just ticked up. not to the point of dropping money yet, but closer.
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
This guy doesn't have time to make a game
Thanks so much for all the positive replies. It's good to know that they have a new CEO in Chris Rowan. It is pretty clear that Brad shouldn't be handling the accounting books here.
Chris R. is indeed an excellent and powerful addition to our team - he is humble and yet extremely gifted in what he does, effectively navigating much of the high-level business distractions so Brad, myself and the rest of our team can focus on what we do best.
Also, thanks for pushing past the surface of things to find out what is really going on right now with Pantheon and our development team. For those who choose to see it, there is a small, but unbelievably passionate and talented team building a focused game for a specific audience of players - a challenging MMO gameplay experience we believe hasn't been truly captured for over a decade . Pantheon will not be for everyone and we couldn't be more comfortable with that.
Glad to hear you're watching our development - hope to see you in beta next year
Creative Director, Lead Game Designer | Visionary Realms, Inc.
Visit the official website of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen at www.pantheonmmo.com!
I was debating on whether to create an thread about this since I learned of the new SEO for Pantheon, but I see the word is out. This should put peoples mind at ease knowing that the developers are able to focus on creating a good game while a professional can do the rest.
You have to take anything you read about Pantheon or McQuaid's work with a giant grain of salt. There have been people slinging mud at Brad and his work since EQ became popular. Thats the way success is. People either enjoy what you've done or get sour because they didn't think of it first.
Yes, Pantheon has had a bumpy road, and it will probably continue to be until they manage to get funding. They pulled the trigger on the kickstarter before they had sufficient information and material to attract the necessary support. This cost them most of the original development team. Now its just a crew of people working mostly pro bono because they are passionate about the kind of MMORPG they are making. They are people that are tired of the stale, single player games for children of all ages that are currently passing as MMORPGs.
As someone who spends inordinate amounts of times watching this genre, posting on forums and studying where games have gone right or wrong, I currently feel that this is one of the only games capable of putting this genre back on track.
I would like to answer your questions Scataman, I hope I can explain it properly for you from my point of view
I have been part of the community from the start and like many others, I was disappointed when it all happened and you can see my responses to those incidents still to this day as you explained in your post above.
They were my feelings at the time while I was an Orange named Apprentice Developer member of the community and I cannot change them, nor would I want to, they were natural reactions that a lot of us had at the time to decisions and issues that we disliked but that was a while ago now under a different team, one that I was not part of or would I of wanted to be.
Things have changed a lot from those days though and I would not have ever of put myself in the line of fire, taken such a risk and joined the team recently if I still had any leftover doubts or concerns over whether I thought this project would succeed or not or if I thought we would suffer from previous incidents.
We are now a new team with a new drive and motivation, lot's of hard work and passion and hardly any of us were part of the past incidents, so I do not understand why people continue to drag us all through the mud for past mistakes made by others but I know some find it hard to move on, so I don't hold it against them.
I do not want people to forget or cover anything up as I feel it is important to learn from past mistakes but there should always be room for those who made them to show that they have learned and moved on, rather than continue to be beaten while they are down without giving them that chance to recover and show what they have learned.
We have acknowledged the past issues many times, learned from them and are doing our best to now move forward and create a game that we all want to play, with such a talented group of people behind the scenes all working together to make it happen.
There will always be some bitter people who can't move away from past incidents but the majority of us can, I am one that can forgive and move on as I can see first hand what is being done behind the scenes, the passion the new team has and the progress we have made in such a short time and I am confident that we will deliver a great game to our niche target audience within the time frame that we have put forward.
You will notice that I do not sugar coat statements or tell people what they want to hear like many other Community Managers and PR representatives, I have always been of the mindset that being upfront with people is the best way to travel through life and if you have read any of my thoughts between the Pantheon Community and the VG Community you will know that I stand by that and require evidence/facts to accept anything and be able to move on.
I have seen that evidence first hand and I am confident in our new team, so confident that I jumped at the chance to work alongside Brad, Chris Perkins and Chris Rowan, as I feel the leadership change, with the addition of some other very experienced people has played a big part in the game moving forward and progressing so well.
I run around in the Pantheon client daily/nightly and I am amazed at what the team has done in such a short time, I have to keep reminding myself that this is an MMORPG with a usual average of a 5 year development cycle and that I am able to run around at steady FPS in some amazing zones not yet available to the public so soon into the creation of the game and enjoy their hard work and I am truly excited to see what we can do going forward after achieving this is such a short amount of time.
I am usually a huge part of any community I join, I have always been a big team player and value my friendships and fellow community members shared passion for our games a lot, Pantheon is no different and now I have a chance to step up and be even more involved by taking the position of Community Manager and chief liaison between the community and the team, which is one I currently enjoy a lot and hope to expand on with more community involvement like I have done with the latest questions release!
I don't expect everyone to forgive and forget but the team should at least be given the chance to prove ourselves before being beaten down again and I would hope that there are still a few reasonable people left in our wider community that feel the same way and rely on evidence and performance, rather than past issues and negativity.
I hope to see you around the Pantheon forums Samatman, you sound like someone that would fit into our community well.
Thanks for your perspective, Kilsin. I think that, as someone looking at the past events without the benefit of being there at the time, I took your comments out of context. Unfortunately, forums systems don't provide history in the sense that you weren't the community manager then, just a crowd funding backer. Thank you so much for clearing that up for me.
Something that I saw as a terrible faux pas is nothing more than the natural concerns of someone who cared deeply about Pantheon.
Also, please don't mistake my concerns from looking at the records of the past for any kind of bitterness or ill will. I would reiterate that I am new here in every sense. I wasn't part of past issues. But they stand recorded as everything we do now is. Thank you for dispelling any concerns I had.
You're very welcome, as I said, I am a big believer in honesty and being upfront with people, so I am glad you can have a better understanding now and be able to put it into better perspective.
It was a bit wordy but I think for others reading this who do not know a lot of the history or only know bits and pieces, it is important to set the scene correctly and explain it in detail so it can't be taken horribly out of context.
Thanks for understanding and being so reasonable about it
Hey Dullahan, I wanted to say, I checked out the link in your signature, and it looks very informative from the design perspective! Thanks for putting it out there!
Pantheon likely isn't going to be my type of game, but wish them success anyway. Always like to follow development of new games regardless, mainly to see how the masses respond to them. This one should be interesting.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Its good to hear that they finally managed to get a proper CEO, while Brad Mcquaid do have positive qualities being a CEO isn't one of them.
My issue with Pantheon is their vision, since it always felt generic. While going with an old-fashioned design focusing on world and group gameplay is adamant none of the features feels refreshing and mostly it just feels like ignoring everything that happened to the genre since 1999.
I would have preferred a game that took the foundations established by everquest in 1999 and introduced new features that takes the genre into a completely new direction. Since the game is still in early development its not too late for that to happen, but right now I have a hard time getting myself hyped about this title.
I want a modern everquest and not a generic everquest clone.
Hey Shaigh, really appreciate your input.
I would love to hear more about what you've seen and heard about the project so far to make you feel like it's on a path to becoming generic. If you've got the time, specifics are always very helpful for us.
One of our most pervasive goals as a team is avoiding the trap of Pantheon becoming a generic EverQuest clone, but instead doing exactly what you've described: taking the solid, classic foundation and building a stand-alone, modern MMO that evolves and expands those foundations in innovative and successful ways. That being the case, we take perspectives like yours very seriously. Looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts.
Creative Director, Lead Game Designer | Visionary Realms, Inc.
Visit the official website of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen at www.pantheonmmo.com!
I think if you take the advancements of Vanguard and just improve from there we will be in good shape. The class dynamics in Vanguard were great. The flavor of each class is to this day unparalleled in my opinion.
Beyond the classes, things like having different forms of gameplay that don't necessarily require players to engage in combat/adventure. This was the idea in Vanguard with crafting and diplomacy, and though it was never fully fleshed out, we know it works from Star Wars Galaxies.
I know having mutiple self sufficient gameplay spheres with the necessary depth to entertain players without combat is a lot to ask, but its those sort of elements that bring a virtual world to life. Thats why people are shouting sandbox more and more over the years, even though sandbox games are generally so barebones they never actually work as intended.