There are a lot of people who played EQ seriously. While some have found new MMOs enjoyable, a large portion of them have not. I remember when WoW first came out, among all of the people I knew, I didn't know a single one who played EQ in it's prime that felt WoW was better.
EQ offered something very unique that no longer exists. If Pantheon can recreate that, it will be appealing to a whole lot more than just "oldschool" fans. Some of you won't get that, but it's completely obvious to the rest of us.
Lol at these estimates when Vanguard sold a quarter of a million boxes in a broken state, and shallow screenshot generators like Black Desert did double that.
I agree with most of what you say, but the estimates were on active users six months post launch, not box sales. There will be a lot of buy and trys retention is the issue. Tell me what was Vanguard's figure six months post launch?
There are a lot of people who played EQ seriously. While some have found new MMOs enjoyable, a large portion of them have not. I remember when WoW first came out, among all of the people I knew, I didn't know a single one who played EQ in it's prime that felt WoW was better.
EQ offered something very unique that no longer exists. If Pantheon can recreate that, it will be appealing to a whole lot more than just "oldschool" fans. Some of you won't get that, but it's completely obvious to the rest of us.
Lol at these estimates when Vanguard sold a quarter of a million boxes in a broken state, and shallow screenshot generators like Black Desert did double that.
I agree with most of what you say, but the estimates were on active users six months post launch, not box sales. There will be a lot of buy and trys retention is the issue. Tell me what was Vanguard's figure six months post launch?
I think everyone knows the answer to that, as well as the reason which is completely irrelevant. Well... irrelevant as long as Pantheon doesn't launch in the same state.
Currently playing EQ again. Hopefully they will deliver on the good and get rid of the bad. I played WoW when it released and it was a good game, but I would agree that I did like EQ better in some ways.
What ensures that it wont be huge is that its a mmorpg.
MMORPGs are not huge anymore.
On top of that old school mmorpg - niche within a niche.
Yeah - it wont be huge unless you consider 50k players after 6 months "huge".
I love this comment cause its true but developers (in the east at least) dont seem to get it. The MMORPG market is oversaturated yet the population was never really that big for it to begin with. People talk about WoW hitting a record number of 15~M or whatever at one point, thus becoming the biggest and only MMORPG to do so, but that's just in the MMORPG world. Devs continue to try and split an already small community further. No MMORPG will ever hit WoW's past numbers because there's too many options, not even because the mmorpgs are good/bad/meh.
What's worse is that players still seem to think success stems from sub numbers, which is completely inaccurate. FFXIV is a prime example. People seem to think that game has a "thriving" community, when it probably has around 300-500k (SE never gives hard numbers, even in the latest census, it said nothing about the actual playerbase, just character information). But why is the game doing so well if not for the subs? The cash shop. SE has updated the cash shop monthly for the past 1.5-2 years, with items that range from 5-35$, most of which are only bound to a single character and not the entire account. Subs don't money doesn't mean much if you have people dropping 50+$ a month + their sub fee, not to mention they allow you to rent space at 2$ each, resulting in people dropping 30$ a month on just staying subbed.
What ensures that it wont be huge is that its a mmorpg.
MMORPGs are not huge anymore.
On top of that old school mmorpg - niche within a niche.
Yeah - it wont be huge unless you consider 50k players after 6 months "huge".
You and your numbers pulled out of thin air again. While I believe that the OP is way over optimistic and setting expectations too high, I really can't take this kind on nonsense.
If Pantheon quality is going to be shit (AKA Vanguard launch), not even 50k people will play it. However, are you telling me that a polished Pantheon, the only real MMORPG with an Old School feel, the MMORPG that EQNext fans turned to, will be less successful than Crowfall, Camelot Unchained or any other MMORPG in development? You can't be serious.
The "potential" Pantheon player base is over 500K, and that's conservative, bigger than any other MMO in production. All you have to do it's add EQ and EQ2 current players, EQ and EQ2 ex players (like me), Vanilla WoW fans (few millions), other Old School games orphans......and most importantly, a new generations of players that never played this kind of game and might actually like it. You guys seems to outright dismiss this possibility, because you all have families and no time to play this kind of games. Guess what, students and young people might have the time to play games like Pantheon.
So after considering all of that, how can you honestly tell that the best Pantheon can aspire to it's 50k? I don't think even you believe your own words.
50k 6 months post launch is a good number for a niche game.
And 2 to 3 times what Wildstar had 6 months after launch (based on NCSoft's financials). A game that had:
old school hardcore design;
big design budget;
"rave reviews by this site!"
a marketing budget c. x4 Pantheon's $4M or x2 if its $8M.
These numbers are not guesses. And there are a decades worth of games to draw on. ( @ste2000 historic numbers don't support your view. And what makes you believe WoW players will be interested!)
I hope the devs are pessimistic and hold costs down; plan on maybe 50k. So that if it does end up with 50k (or less) after 6 months it still has a chance. And if it does have 250k after 6 months - so getting on to SWTOR success - things will be really good. Plan for low and if you get high that's a bonus.
And no I won't be playing and nor am I curious. How Paradox have implemented the Black Death ... in a seriously deep game (so not an mmo) that I am interested in; if only there weren't so many other games and non-game stuff for that matter.
There are a lot of people who played EQ seriously. While some have found new MMOs enjoyable, a large portion of them have not. I remember when WoW first came out and among all of the people I knew in several communities, I didn't know a single one who played EQ in it's prime that felt WoW was better.
EQ offered something very unique that no longer exists. If Pantheon can recreate that, it will be appealing to a whole lot more than just "oldschool" fans. Some of you won't get that, but it's completely obvious to the rest of us.
Lol at these estimates when Vanguard sold a quarter of a million boxes in a broken state 10 years ago, and a shallow screenshot engine with a focus on PvP (PvE demo is much larger) like Black Desert did double that.
God there is just so much wrong with that post I don't really know where to start...
"There are a lot of people who played EQ seriously. While some have found new MMOs enjoyable, a large portion of them have not."
Really? A large portion? How have you quantified that? By counting those who agree with your niche perspective and dismissing those who don't as not worth counting? ESO has sold somewhere between 7-10 million boxes. Many of us playing and enjoying it also played AC, UO, EQ... etc. But yeah... we don't count.
"Some of you won't get that, but it's completely obvious to the rest of us."
Wow... See this is the part that makes me start typing when I would rather just to leave you alone with your delusions. That implicit elitist conceit that the reason we're not on board your hype train is because we don't get it.
"...a shallow screenshot engine with a focus on PvP (PvE demo is much larger) like Black Desert did double that."
Just more of the same old dismissive and clueless tripe. You're certainly not shy about dissing BDO or ESO or anything else that you don't like. But the utter lack of insight you display thinking that the numbers a modern AAA game with cutting edge graphics like BDO can pull are somehow relevant to what Pantheon will do simply because in your estimation Pantheon is "better" is beyond delusion.
Yeah... the masses just don't enjoy games right. We need Pantheon's slow as molasses game play to teach us the error of our ways.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
I really dont see how an old school MMO will fly well in 2017 (r whenever this will see the light of day)...Sure there is a niche market for it but will it be big enough to pay the bills?
If the game has one full server of like minded players that understand the grouping dynamic, then i'll be happy. There's no need for a huge player base which will never happen anyway.
I really dont see how an old school MMO will fly well in 2017 (r whenever this will see the light of day)...Sure there is a niche market for it but will it be big enough to pay the bills?
Depends on how much the bills are, which supposedly more or less the same like Brad's previous projects like Vanguard and Everquest.
When you don't want the truth, you will make up your own truth.
God there is just so much wrong with that post I don't really know where to start...
"There are a lot of people who played EQ seriously. While some have found new MMOs enjoyable, a large portion of them have not."
Really? A large portion? How have you quantified that? By counting those who agree with your niche perspective and dismissing those who don't as not worth counting? ESO has sold somewhere between 7-10 million boxes. Many of us playing and enjoying it also played AC, UO, EQ... etc. But yeah... we don't count.
"Some of you won't get that, but it's completely obvious to the rest of us."
Wow... See this is the part that makes me start typing when I would rather just to leave you alone with your delusions. That implicit elitist conceit that the reason we're not on board your hype train is because we don't get it.
"...a shallow screenshot engine with a focus on PvP (PvE demo is much larger) like Black Desert did double that."
Just more of the same old dismissive and clueless tripe. You're certainly not shy about dissing BDO or ESO or anything else that you don't like. But the utter lack of insight you display thinking that the numbers a modern AAA game with cutting edge graphics like BDO can pull are somehow relevant to what Pantheon will do simply because in your estimation Pantheon is "better" is beyond delusion.
Yeah... the masses just don't enjoy games right. We need Pantheon's slow as molasses game play to teach us the error of our ways.
There is nothing elitist about it. What I've said is mostly my opinion, as well as observations and facts. Like many things in life, it's something you simply had to experience to understand. There's nothing wrong with having not. I never suggested or even vaguely eluded to that, but those who were not there won't get it even if it were told to them.
You like to read a lot of stuff into what I said. How about you stop projecting on me and take what I said at face value.
I've been playing MMOs and reading online game forums for the better part of 20 years. In that time, I've read a lot of comments and had a lot of discussions on the virtues of older game design versus what we have today. In that time, it has been the rare exception to find someone who played EQ early on that did not want to play another game like it.
Why do I have to have a statistic to make an observation? I guess my observations really make you upset. You don't have to get angry with someone who doesn't share your perspective. Your hostility is unwarranted.
And I'll say it again. Pantheon is so 1990's. Forced group play by the guy who called his customers "Bottom feeders" and came up with the egregiously naïve and ultimately unenforceable "Play Nice" policy. After he abandoned his Vanguard development team, no one ever expected anyone to give him any money to make a game again. And then crowd sourcing came along. PT Barnum is laughing in his grave.
The only aspect of Pantheon that will be huge is the disappointment, the mistakes and, ultimately, the failure.
Men do not stop playing because they grow old. They grow old because they stop playing. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Game will not be huge but will have a large following. If it is really good probably will have a surprisingly larger following then expected and I expect the player base to be stable over many years and not have the rapid ups and downs of a modern themepark.
The problem is most people in this genre want a game they can jump into after work play for a few hours and be top tier endgame in a few weeks. The majority want fast paced twitch games. The majority want solo focused with the option to group. The majority want grinding removed completely. The majority want f2p games. Most people do not want to be forced to socialize to progress. Most people do not want actual mmos....
So no this will not be huge, but then again it does not have to be to be great successful either. Just needs a strong enough playerbase to last for years and support high quality content being developed.
I agree with this, and to take it one step further, I think the game will be better for it. Pantheon is supposed to be all about community. It harkens back to a time when everyone knew who their server's "class clown" was; a time when roleplayers weren't strange to see; and a time when large friend lists meant something. People simply don't want that anymore. The new way certainly isn't wrong, but it isn't Pantheon's way. Dying 3 times and deleveling after taking a week to get level 10 just because you attempted to make it to another capital without a high level escort isn't most peoples' cup of tea these days. I suspect that many players will try it and discover that this type of game is exactly what they've been missing. However, many will also see it as outdated and purposefully punishing completely missing the point of Pantheon. The best it can hope for is to start small and grow steadily over time. Let the game evolve with the players for a change instead of the other way around.
I've been playing MMOs and reading online game forums for the better part of 20 years. In that time, I've read a lot of comments and had a lot of discussions on the virtues of older game design versus what we have today. In that time, it has been the rare exception to find someone who played EQ early on that did not want to play another game like it.
Why do I have to have a statistic to make an observation? I guess my observations really make you upset. You don't have to get angry with someone who doesn't share your perspective. Your hostility is unwarranted.
That's probably because you only listen to those who have that viewpoint. I was in Phase One Beta of EQ and played it to death, so I know the game and loved it in it's time. And in that time, it was king of the hill primarily because it was one of the few and first games in town. People bitched about the forced grouping, about the lost experience, about kill-stealing, and all the other things that seem silly today but were just part of the landscape at that time. And for a game called EverQUEST, it had the crappiest quest system ever devised. No, it is not the "rare exception" that does not want to play another game like that. It is the majority of the market speaking, and they have spoken, many times over.
The world is filled with people who want to re-live their past, only to discover that you can't re-live the past. Progress happens and context changes. A large part of what made EQ so memorable was its novelty, the epic adventures lived out for the first time in a game (who can forget the trek from Qeynos to Freeport)? Things just aren't as rosy as your memory draws them.
The world has moved on to better things, for a reason.
Men do not stop playing because they grow old. They grow old because they stop playing. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
I've been playing MMOs and reading online game forums for the better part of 20 years. In that time, I've read a lot of comments and had a lot of discussions on the virtues of older game design versus what we have today. In that time, it has been the rare exception to find someone who played EQ early on that did not want to play another game like it.
Why do I have to have a statistic to make an observation? I guess my observations really make you upset. You don't have to get angry with someone who doesn't share your perspective. Your hostility is unwarranted.
That's probably because you only listen to those who have that viewpoint. I was in Phase One Beta of EQ and played it to death, so I know the game and loved it in it's time. And in that time, it was king of the hill primarily because it was one of the few and first games in town. People bitched about the forced grouping, about the lost experience, about kill-stealing, and all the other things that seem silly today but were just part of the landscape at that time.
...
Things just aren't as rosy as your memory draws them.
The world has moved on to better things, for a reason.
I also played from test, and for many years after that. I don't recall much complaining over those issues. That sentiment was the exception, because making those complaints is like going to the beach during the summer and whining about the heat. Not saying they didn't occur, only that you exaggerate the severity or the perception of people in general. The fact that EQ sported a 65% retention rate in the early years, even after half a dozen other MMOs came out, reveals the contrarian nature of people.
As Kano said earlier Pantheon is going to be a niche within a niche. Hard content, forced grouping, etc.etc.etc... Is an extreme niche as far as long term play goes. Take something like Dark Souls as an example. it sells well initially. Yet also has a huge percentage of people who simply cannot stick it out. Or won't stick it out to completion. That's a single player title though so the box fee is all that matters, quitters have no impact on success..
I also think it's a tad bit odd to expect the eq crowd to carry this title forward, at least to any form of massive success. Simply because most were younger and had far less real life responsibility in those days, which is the only reason they were able to put that kind of time and energy into an MMORPG like EQ ( requiring tons of hours of free time).
They'll need a good portion of younger players who are always on to give those people the same type of grouping experience they were used to in EQ. Which is why those with little time could get by back in those days. The younger 18-to-20 something crowd was what carried the experience in those older games. Who has the life where they can put in 15 hours into a game on a day to day basis, other than those people? I don't think they can get by on the retired and disabled.
This is the biggest issue I see with pantheon. If they don't get that younger crowd (which I've yet to see any push toward them).. It will be a ghost town most times of the day, aside from Primetime entertainment hours (7-10 pm) or so.. Not a good place to be for an MMORPG.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I am interested in Pantheon and more than likely will be trying it out; however, the combat in the most recent streams scares me off a bit. It looks clunky. Hopefully, that will all be ironed out before any betas.
As Kano said earlier Pantheon is going to be a niche within a niche. Hard content, forced grouping, etc.etc.etc... Is an extreme niche as far as long term play goes. Take something like Dark Souls as an example. it sells well initially. Yet also has a huge percentage of people who simply cannot stick it out. Or won't stick it out to completion. That's a single player title though so the box fee is all that matters, quitters have no impact on success..
I also think it's a tad bit odd to expect the eq crowd to carry this title forward, at least to any form of massive success. Simply because most were younger and had far less real life responsibility in those days, which is the only reason they were able to put that kind of time and energy into an MMORPG like EQ ( requiring tons of hours of free time).
They'll need a good portion of younger players who are always on to give those people the same type of grouping experience they were used to in EQ. Which is why those with little time could get by back in those days. The younger 18-to-20 something crowd was what carried the experience in those older games. Who has the life where they can put in 15 hours into a game on a day to day basis, other than those people? I don't think they can get by on the retired and disabled.
This is the biggest issue I see with pantheon. If they don't get that younger crowd (which I've yet to see any push toward them).. It will be a ghost town most times of the day, aside from Primetime entertainment hours (7-10 pm) or so.. Not a good place to be for an MMORPG.
As one of the 'retired and disabled' I can assure you that there are a lot of us around the world. More than enough to deliver a solid base of subscribers to Pantheon. I expect thst the niche of a niche is large enough to deliver 50k solid subscribers for a good game. Who knows it might be ten times that (500k) for a quality product. But time will tell.
Maybe if you didn't take pot shots and make snarky comments at every other game on the forum then you wouldn't get prickly reactions. Are you that worried about Pantheon that you have to elevate it by putting other games down?
Some of them are just that bad. When games resort to gating progression in cash shops and nickle and diming their customers, they should be mocked.
As Kano said earlier Pantheon is going to be a niche within a niche. Hard content, forced grouping, etc.etc.etc... Is an extreme niche as far as long term play goes. Take something like Dark Souls as an example. it sells well initially. Yet also has a huge percentage of people who simply cannot stick it out. Or won't stick it out to completion. That's a single player title though so the box fee is all that matters, quitters have no impact on success..
I also think it's a tad bit odd to expect the eq crowd to carry this title forward, at least to any form of massive success. Simply because most were younger and had far less real life responsibility in those days, which is the only reason they were able to put that kind of time and energy into an MMORPG like EQ ( requiring tons of hours of free time).
They'll need a good portion of younger players who are always on to give those people the same type of grouping experience they were used to in EQ. Which is why those with little time could get by back in those days. The younger 18-to-20 something crowd was what carried the experience in those older games. Who has the life where they can put in 15 hours into a game on a day to day basis, other than those people? I don't think they can get by on the retired and disabled.
This is the biggest issue I see with pantheon. If they don't get that younger crowd (which I've yet to see any push toward them).. It will be a ghost town most times of the day, aside from Primetime entertainment hours (7-10 pm) or so.. Not a good place to be for an MMORPG.
As one of the 'retired and disabled' I can assure you that there are a lot of us around the world. More than enough to deliver a solid base of subscribers to Pantheon. I expect thst the niche of a niche is large enough to deliver 50k solid subscribers for a good game. Who knows it might be ten times that (500k) for a quality product. But time will tell.
Then basically you agree with him, because by backing up Kano he's already saying 50k is the likely forecast at this time anyways.
500k though.... Did Everquest even have that many? Remember that people have to actually know about the existance of this game and care enough to look at it before they will actually buy it. How far do you think the game's marketting department will be able to reach? How many people do you think will look at the name, "Pantheon", and decide to spend money to try it out? This isn't an F2P or non-subscription B2P game either (unless that changed?) so getting that many people to open up their wallets for it will be all that much harder.
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Redsalt... the other salt.
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
What's worse is that players still seem to think success stems from sub numbers, which is completely inaccurate. FFXIV is a prime example. People seem to think that game has a "thriving" community, when it probably has around 300-500k (SE never gives hard numbers, even in the latest census, it said nothing about the actual playerbase, just character information). But why is the game doing so well if not for the subs? The cash shop. SE has updated the cash shop monthly for the past 1.5-2 years, with items that range from 5-35$, most of which are only bound to a single character and not the entire account. Subs don't money doesn't mean much if you have people dropping 50+$ a month + their sub fee, not to mention they allow you to rent space at 2$ each, resulting in people dropping 30$ a month on just staying subbed.
- old school hardcore design;
- big design budget;
- "rave reviews by this site!"
- a marketing budget c. x4 Pantheon's $4M or x2 if its $8M.
These numbers are not guesses. And there are a decades worth of games to draw on. ( @ste2000 historic numbers don't support your view. And what makes you believe WoW players will be interested!)I hope the devs are pessimistic and hold costs down; plan on maybe 50k. So that if it does end up with 50k (or less) after 6 months it still has a chance. And if it does have 250k after 6 months - so getting on to SWTOR success - things will be really good. Plan for low and if you get high that's a bonus.
And no I won't be playing and nor am I curious. How Paradox have implemented the Black Death ... in a seriously deep game (so not an mmo) that I am interested in; if only there weren't so many other games and non-game stuff for that matter.
"There are a lot of people who played EQ seriously. While some have found new MMOs enjoyable, a large portion of them have not."
Really? A large portion? How have you quantified that? By counting those who agree with your niche perspective and dismissing those who don't as not worth counting? ESO has sold somewhere between 7-10 million boxes. Many of us playing and enjoying it also played AC, UO, EQ... etc. But yeah... we don't count.
"Some of you won't get that, but it's completely obvious to the rest of us."
Wow... See this is the part that makes me start typing when I would rather just to leave you alone with your delusions. That implicit elitist conceit that the reason we're not on board your hype train is because we don't get it.
"...a shallow screenshot engine with a focus on PvP (PvE demo is much larger) like Black Desert did double that."
Just more of the same old dismissive and clueless tripe. You're certainly not shy about dissing BDO or ESO or anything else that you don't like. But the utter lack of insight you display thinking that the numbers a modern AAA game with cutting edge graphics like BDO can pull are somehow relevant to what Pantheon will do simply because in your estimation Pantheon is "better" is beyond delusion.
Yeah... the masses just don't enjoy games right. We need Pantheon's slow as molasses game play to teach us the error of our ways.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
It is 2017.
When you don't want the truth, you will make up your own truth.
Redsalt... the other salt.
You like to read a lot of stuff into what I said. How about you stop projecting on me and take what I said at face value.
I've been playing MMOs and reading online game forums for the better part of 20 years. In that time, I've read a lot of comments and had a lot of discussions on the virtues of older game design versus what we have today. In that time, it has been the rare exception to find someone who played EQ early on that did not want to play another game like it.
Why do I have to have a statistic to make an observation? I guess my observations really make you upset. You don't have to get angry with someone who doesn't share your perspective. Your hostility is unwarranted.
And I'll say it again. Pantheon is so 1990's. Forced group play by the guy who called his customers "Bottom feeders" and came up with the egregiously naïve and ultimately unenforceable "Play Nice" policy. After he abandoned his Vanguard development team, no one ever expected anyone to give him any money to make a game again. And then crowd sourcing came along. PT Barnum is laughing in his grave.
The only aspect of Pantheon that will be huge is the disappointment, the mistakes and, ultimately, the failure.
Men do not stop playing because they grow old. They grow old because they stop playing. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
That's probably because you only listen to those who have that viewpoint. I was in Phase One Beta of EQ and played it to death, so I know the game and loved it in it's time. And in that time, it was king of the hill primarily because it was one of the few and first games in town. People bitched about the forced grouping, about the lost experience, about kill-stealing, and all the other things that seem silly today but were just part of the landscape at that time. And for a game called EverQUEST, it had the crappiest quest system ever devised. No, it is not the "rare exception" that does not want to play another game like that. It is the majority of the market speaking, and they have spoken, many times over.
The world is filled with people who want to re-live their past, only to discover that you can't re-live the past. Progress happens and context changes. A large part of what made EQ so memorable was its novelty, the epic adventures lived out for the first time in a game (who can forget the trek from Qeynos to Freeport)? Things just aren't as rosy as your memory draws them.
The world has moved on to better things, for a reason.
Men do not stop playing because they grow old. They grow old because they stop playing. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
As Kano said earlier Pantheon is going to be a niche within a niche. Hard content, forced grouping, etc.etc.etc... Is an extreme niche as far as long term play goes. Take something like Dark Souls as an example. it sells well initially. Yet also has a huge percentage of people who simply cannot stick it out. Or won't stick it out to completion. That's a single player title though so the box fee is all that matters, quitters have no impact on success..
I also think it's a tad bit odd to expect the eq crowd to carry this title forward, at least to any form of massive success. Simply because most were younger and had far less real life responsibility in those days, which is the only reason they were able to put that kind of time and energy into an MMORPG like EQ ( requiring tons of hours of free time).
They'll need a good portion of younger players who are always on to give those people the same type of grouping experience they were used to in EQ. Which is why those with little time could get by back in those days. The younger 18-to-20 something crowd was what carried the experience in those older games. Who has the life where they can put in 15 hours into a game on a day to day basis, other than those people? I don't think they can get by on the retired and disabled.
This is the biggest issue I see with pantheon. If they don't get that younger crowd (which I've yet to see any push toward them).. It will be a ghost town most times of the day, aside from Primetime entertainment hours (7-10 pm) or so.. Not a good place to be for an MMORPG.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
500k though.... Did Everquest even have that many? Remember that people have to actually know about the existance of this game and care enough to look at it before they will actually buy it. How far do you think the game's marketting department will be able to reach? How many people do you think will look at the name, "Pantheon", and decide to spend money to try it out? This isn't an F2P or non-subscription B2P game either (unless that changed?) so getting that many people to open up their wallets for it will be all that much harder.