KickStarter Pantheon - (Brad "EQ" McQuaid's new MMO)

[Norfleet]

I look at it this way. If the game designers say "hey, this is against the rules...", well... it is against the rules and anyone who does it is a cheater. It really is as simple as that.

Since game designers generally declare EVERYTHING against the rules, including doing nothing (seriously, have you actually read the rules?), this means everyone is already a cheater just by playing the game. Hell, you're a cheater even if you've NEVER played the game, it's entirely possible to get banned before you've ever even set foot on or even heard of the game. I know people this has happened to, they show up and are told they've already been banned despite having never played the game. As such, these declarations are pretty meaningless.

 

[Ranselknulf]

It's not really even about rules at this point as all MMO's sanction p2w features.

 

[Xenich]

It's not really even about rules at this point as all MMO's sanction p2w features.

Not all will though, for instance... this game.

Also, I am not entirely sure your statement is actually true.

 

[Xenich]

I look at it this way. If the game designers say "hey, this is against the rules...", well... it is against the rules and anyone who does it is a cheater. It really is as simple as that.

Since game designers generally declare EVERYTHING against the rules, including doing nothing (seriously, have you actually read the rules?), this means everyone is already a cheater just by playing the game. Hell, you're a cheater even if you've NEVER played the game, it's entirely possible to get banned before you've ever even set foot on or even heard of the game. I know people this has happened to, they show up and are told they've already been banned despite having never played the game. As such, these declarations are pretty meaningless.

Can you cite some examples please from notable games? Context always helps when we discuss things like this.

 

[Norfleet]

Well, since I know you don't care for personal anecdotes, let's cite your favorite: Everquest.

3. We may amend this Agreement at any time in our sole discretion. Amendments shall be communicated to you at the time you log into your Account. Such amendments shall be effective whenever we make the notification available for your review.

6. We may terminate this Agreement (including your Software license and your Account) and/or suspend your Account immediately and without notice if you breach this Agreement or repeatedly infringe any third party intellectual property rights, or if we are unable to verify or authenticate any information you provide to us, or upon gameplay, chat or any player activity whatsoever which we, in our sole discretion, determine is inappropriate and/or in violation of the spirit of the Game as set forth in the Game player rules of conduct, which are posted at a hotlink at www.everquestlive.com.

In short, these rules, as taken directly from their own documents, state that there are no rules, no rule of law, no judiciary, just their complete and arbitrary whim to do whatever the hell they please, whenever the hell they please. They are under no obligation to actually state the rules clearly and unambiguously, and there is no independent oversight or arbitration of any kind. There is no evidence required to convict you of any real or imagined offense. The entire system is an utter mockery of any kind of due process.

This is, well, frankly, entirely standard, but goes to show that the Rule of Law does not exist. There are no rules as written, and they declare themselves the sole judge, jury, and executioner. You exist at the whim of an insane dictator, nothing more. That how all modern MMOs works. None even pretend to embrace the Rule of Law anymore. If you've never had an encounter like this, or known anyone who has, you're either very lucky, or hang out within circles of people too utterly beneath even contempt for the powers that be to even notice you. Although even that is not necessarily a defense, now that they've taken to using automated scanners to do these things.

It wasn't always this way. I remember the old days, back when if you were accused of breaking an actual rule, there was an actual trial. Evidence, presented before an administrator specifically appointed to act as a neutral judge. And when it turned out what I had been allegedly accused of wasn't actually a rule at all or there wasn't any evidence whatsoever to support the accusation? I got off. Now? There is no such process. You are tried, found guilty, and executed, entirely in absentia. It has been gone for a long time, well before we even had MMOs.

So what "rules" exist are suspect at best, strict adherence to them is meaningless to impossible, and one is left to simply live by the Golden Rule: Always pillage before you burn.

 

[Xenich]

You don't understand much about contract law do you?

3. Is a standard protection clause that allows them to modify the agreement as needed. If such a clause did not exist, no change could ever be made to it. This would result in them being legally bound to any possible flaw within it and allow for various abuses. As it concerns game development, this would mean... no patches, fixes, balances, or new content that was outside of the initial contracts scope as anything that changed basic game play rules would violate this agreement.

Let us then consider the reasonableness of such. That is, is it not reasonable that the game master be able to adjust their rules as possible situations warrant? That is, for unseen abuses, indiscretions by users or even basic rules that have less than expected effect?

6. Allows them to terminate the business contract based on your inability to hold to the agreement. This again protects them from banning an abuser of violation who would then sue them for their investment in the game. That is, even a player who committed ANY offense would be able to sue the company for dismissal.

You did not cite any examples to support your position. All you did was grab some loose reference and then attempt to rationalize it to your poorly established position.

So far, all you provided is a means to claim for "possible" abuse. This appears to be a theme of your reasoning. That is, you make an loose and unfounded accusation and then attempt to claim it gives you justification for any behavior you choose. As I have said, this is a common behavior among criminal personalities.


Please provide a legitimate example properly cited where EQ banned a player in the manner to which would support your accusation of them changing the rules at a whim. That is what your accusations imply. Provide support.


You know what, don't even bother. It is like the Agile development thread. You really don't understand what you are talking about and so you continuously regurgitate your poorly contrived positions thinking that such grasping at straws will give you purchase in the argument. Thing is, like your attitude with gaming, you have no issues with stretching truth, manipulating context and basically... just pulling things out of your ass in order to "win" the discussion.

You are best put on ignore as you constantly derail this thread with your ignorant discussion. You are the typical PvPer in that respect. Dumb, and full of themselves. Enjoy ignore. /shrug

 

[Norfleet]

You don't understand much about contract law do you?

I understand just fine. Taken in isolation, they seem benign. Until you realize that the combined effect of this is that they've invalidated every semblance of any actual rules, and replaced them with whims that they are the sole arbiters of, with no actual recourse anywhere.

Let us then consider the reasonableness of such. That is, is it not reasonable that the game master be able to adjust their rules as possible situations warrant? That is, for unseen abuses, indiscretions by users or even basic rules that have less than expected effect?

And by this, you mean, the unlimited ability to arbitrarily declare anything illegal ex post facto and then punish someone for breaking a rule which didn't even exist? This is not justice. It is, in fact, forbidden constitutionally in many countries.

You did not cite any examples to support your position. All you did was grab some loose reference and then attempt to rationalize it to your poorly established position.

If I did, you'd declare it a personal anecdote and deem it invalid. If you really want to know, though, it's in the STO thread, and you can probably also ask about Bradylama's Gold in the ED thread. I never did find out if he got his gold back. Quite simply, they do whatever the fuck they want. No evidence is ever provided, the trial is held in absentia, and you'll never even see your accuser. If there even is one, since it's probably a bot.

Quite frankly, what I've seen in how things are run even in mainstream MMOs now has convinced me that the only real rule is to pilage before you burn, and anything else is a loose suggestion at best, for all it's actually worth.

Please provide a legitimate example properly cited where EQ banned a player in the manner to which would support your accusation of them changing the rules at a whim. That is what your accusations imply. Provide support.

I don't have a direct EQ example to link offhand, I simply quoted the boilerplate ruleset. It's not unique to EQ, but as your most beloved game ever, it seemed a good place to start. Most of Everquest predates widespread web adoption, however, and as such, any examples I do have would probably qualify as hearsay at this point. I have an Eve example somewhere, but it was ultimately overturned after some manner of public riot, and I'd have to ask Istvaan about the details.

 

[Grokalibre]

You're like the V for Vendetta of mmos! A renegade, a freedom fighter! I'm sure people look up to you.

 

[Xenich]

I'm not against gold buying or even selling an account. Why? Because I think that's the player's or account owner's choice..

So, you think the individuals choice trumps that of the games rules and all others who play?

I think trying to forbid that or control it's draconian and ultimately counterproductive.

Rules are draconian? Counterproductive?

The more correct way to go about this is to make a good game and encourage players to play it. See, when a game has been reduced down to buying gold or grinding money or grinding accounts to sell em then I think the player is not really have fun anymore.

So your suggestion is that if you make a good game, people won't cheat? Pray tel, how do you intend to establish this when what is considered "fun" is entirely subjective? You do realize it is impossible to meet everyone's expectation of "fun", that there will always be those who find elements of play not fun? According to your rationalization, something not being fun is justification for cheating.

I subscribe to a different form of approach. If you have to cheat a game to enjoy it, then you shouldn't play it. Especially when it is a game that involves other people. /shrug

For example, there was a time in EQ when I lived on the leaderboards. I level locked msyelf and watched them, trying to get the highest HP/AC/etc for my level. I eventually burned out doing tha. I leanred from the experience that when the game becomes like that it's not worht playing anymore. It's the same deal with ppl who want to level fast and skip evrything. Or want to buy in-game money with $$$$. They're focused on the numbers. They're not really enjoying anything. They're going to burn out. Hopefully they larn like I did it's not productive..

So, you ruined your game because of your own personal issues and you think the game should shift to attend to your and others poor play styles? Interesting...

If gold farmers are slaughtering whole zones, preventing other players from enjoying the zone, do something. But if gold farmers aren't impacting the gameplay of normal players then focus on making a good game. If farmers or cash buyers or others of their ilk are trashing the chat channels, do something. Agian, do something when it matters, otherwise no.

Yet they do impact game play as has been stated many times by Sony, Blizzard, Turbine, etc... The fact that they eventually started doing it themselves does not change those past statements. All they did was to stop fighting it and began to profit on it.

So long as players can benefit from each other, there'll probably always be some form of cash buying or purchasing of in-game progression or wealth. You can't really prevent without making it single player or being a tyrant.

True, it will always exist. The issue was never if it could be stopped completely, rather the need for some to justify it.

As Flunklesnarkin pointed out, most of the MMO players of the past no longer play MMOs these days. The people who would object to plat buying don't play any of these games (I do not play any of the MMOs of today for that very reason).

This game however is not such. It will have no RMT stores or player real money trading systems (they won't even have a centratilized AH system), etc... and such activities will be considered cheating. So, those who enjoy cheating would be better off playing another game, considering this game IS NOT being made for them.

 

[Xenich]

Here is an update from a couple of days ago. No video, but they do show an example of their Unity 5 conversion:

https://www.pantheonrotf.com/forums/topic/1896/pantheon-update-may-2015

let's look at the following 3 images: The first is the initial mockup of Avendyr's Pass inside the Unity 5 game engine:

Spoiler

The second image is a concept art 'paint-over' J.P. did on top of the first image to imbue the art style for the area:

Spoiler

The third image is what happens when John Diasparra takes J.P.'s paint-over and uses it as a reference to finalize the visuals of the scene inside the game engine (this is an in-game screenshot, taken as night begins to fall on Avendyr's Pass):

Spoiler

From start to finish, hopefully this gives you an idea of the power of Unity 5 and the talent of J.P.'s art direction - we can't wait to show you more!

 

[Drakron]

So, your only argument is that it is ok to break the rules because the company would want a cut on the activity anyway, so... its ok to do...

Let me point out this hilarity.

When STO became F2P there were no gold sellers, reason was there was nothing to trade as the only currency that mattered was Dilithium that could not be traded, C-Store items were unlocks so it was a situation were it was nearly impossible to sell something to players with 3rd party sites.

Now they are common and why? because of bind rules on newer items ... C-Store items can be traded, Lock Box items can also be traded and thus allowed Gold sellers to be able to sell things, this was deliberate because they can shield the economy from Gold sellers, they chosen NOT to because of two reasons, one is they provide metrics (AKA game is not dying) and second, they maintain part of the economy flowing.

I pointed out ONE thing, if there is a market someone will set it up ... nothing more, you on the other hand go about "morals","cheating" and similar nonsense that is attempting to demonize what is the simple rules of market, if there is a demand someone will make a market out of it, your entire arguments are simply silly semantics.

You sir are godless communist, good day.

 

[Bliblablubb]

You're like the V for Vendetta of mmos! A renegade, a freedom fighter! I'm sure people look up to you.

But his mask would have a grumpy expression. F for Fun-Police!

 

[belowmecoldhands]

Hey Xenich, do you ever get tired of being mean and hostile. Do you ever wish you could just chill and like everybody and play every game and smile always? Like nothing bothers you. People are drawn to you. You're magic.

Being a supporter of Pantheon means you gotta hate?

Is it possible to like niche games and still be happy-go-lucky? Never get irritated by somebody or something which is different? For example, if I like football and somebody else likes tennis, I'm like cool with that. Lets have a beer.

Lets all sit back and relax. Have a smoke. No bad feelings. All is good.

No more long aggressive posts. From here forward, everything is short and no worries.

 

[Norfleet]

Hey Xenich, do you ever get tired of being mean and hostile. Do you ever wish you could just chill and like everybody and play every game and smile always? Like nothing bothers you. People are drawn to you. You're magic.

This idea of yours sounds suspiciously similar to the mental retardation induced by severe head injury.

 

[belowmecoldhands]

Hey Xenich, do you ever get tired of being mean and hostile. Do you ever wish you could just chill and like everybody and play every game and smile always? Like nothing bothers you. People are drawn to you. You're magic.

This idea of yours sounds suspiciously similar to the mental retardation induced by severe head injury.

Maybe. Maybe not. I shouldn't have used words like 'never' or 'always' and 'everybody'....

Or maybe I was just trying to translate the 'magic' some people have. I know they don't like everybody. I know they don't like every game. I know they get angry sometimes. And yet they're not as aggressive. Not as hostile. They're likeable more frequently.

Haven't you ever met people like that?

Can it be called charisma? Personality?

Xenich seems to me higly cynical or critical. I've been that way before. It won't make you friends.

Some of the anger is rooted in my belief what I like in games is unpopular. Or maybe what I like stems from psychological hangups or dysfunktions. That makes me even angrier. Oftentimes I don't evne state my opinion because it just makes me angry. That old phrase "If you can't say something constructive/positive then don't."

Maybe it's selfishness. Or parts of me haven't matured. I don't liike being a bump on the log. When I enter a discusion, I don't want to be heated. I don't want it to be about opinions. I want to chill.

Chilling is hte hardest part. It doesn't come natural. And when opinions aren't on my mind, seemingly nothing else is. So if I'm in a conversation and I'm not being a lawyer then I'm silent. I'm as exciting as a brick.

 

[Ranselknulf]

You two are still at it?

Who cares.. the game will be good or it, in all likelihood, won't. Either way just wait and see and check back later. Seems like too much effort to ape a game this much.

 

[Norfleet]

Xenich seems to me higly cynical or critical. I've been that way before. It won't make you friends.

Nothing wrong with being highly cynical and critical. It's a sign of intelligence, although not in and of itself indicative of it. But no one engages their brain without critical thought, and therefore, being critical is a necessary condition. As for not making you friends, I disagree! I have an entire circle of those who hang around precisely because they appreciate my clear observation. The gift of clear observation is often called cynicism by those who have not got it.

Some of the anger is rooted in my belief what I like in games is unpopular. Or maybe what I like stems from psychological hangups or dysfunktions. That makes me even angrier. Oftentimes I don't evne state my opinion because it just makes me angry. That old phrase "If you can't say something constructive/positive then don't."

Well, if you haven't got anything negative to say, you haven't got anything useful to say, either. Positive commentary is nothing more than circlejerk backpatting, of no productive value whatsoever. If it isn't broken, how are you supposed to fix it? Nothing's perfect, so if you can't find something wrong, you're not even trying. Anger sustains life. Without rage, there is no motivation to do anything but sit there drooling vapidly like an imbecile. If it doesn't piss you off, why even doing anything about it?

You two are still at it?

Us two? Which two? I count at least three of us actively arguing, and there's not even a two-way consensus, so it's more like a 3-way argument, often undirected and tangential. Like right now, we're arguing about Xenich, and Xenich isn't even a participant in the argument.

 

[Drakron]

Nothing wrong with being highly cynical and critical. It's a sign of intelligence, although not in and of itself indicative of it.

I only point out when people go about "cheating" and "morals" when companies clearly engage in such practices, a lot of that comes from older MMO players that were educated that F2P is bad because it simply was against their subsidized system, its like saying Socialism is bad because Capitalism, they are simply different systems.

I can point out many flaws of F2P system that simply prefer to annoy the player until he pays, not that subscription systems dont do that as well in different forms, ultimate its a question of making the players to open their wallet were the issuse I have is how they attempt to do that.

 

[belowmecoldhands]

Nothing wrong with being highly cynical and critical. It's a sign of intelligence, although not in and of itself indicative of it.

I only point out when people go about "cheating" and "morals" when companies clearly engage in such practices, a lot of that comes from older MMO players that were educated that F2P is bad because it simply was against their subsidized system, its like saying Socialism is bad because Capitalism, they are simply different systems.

I can point out many flaws of F2P system that simply prefer to annoy the player until he pays, not that subscription systems dont do that as well in different forms, ultimate its a question of making the players to open their wallet were the issuse I have is how they attempt to do that.

Coming from olc school of thought I don't like hte F2P systems much. It seems to me all they did was offload the weight of the payments on the big spenders and made the game much more pw2 than it used to be.

This is how it works, lets say you have 100 player and they look like this:
40 are f2p
40 pay for premium which is like a subscription
20 pay for premium and spend heavily on experience boosts and appearance items

It's the "spend heavily on experience boosts and appearnace items" which makes up for the 40 f2p players. This allows the company to remain solvent despite 40 players not paying anything. So you have a small population paying a large sum of money.

In RL about 20% of the population owns 80% of the world's wealth. It's not an exaggeration to say 20% of your customers can provide 80% of your revenue. All you have to dis make gameplay and features which can appeal to people who have the money.

I also think the more time and money a person invests in an MMO the more they'll try to play aggressively. So when you drop $15 on a game you'll put more time into it so as not to waste your $15 investment. If you're rich and $15 is like pennies, this may not apply. But if you're rich and spend $200 on a yearlong subscription, it may. This all means if you don't put any money into the game, you're more likely to run out of steam early. You're more likely to jump from game to game for trivial reasons. And similarly, if you don't put any time in teh game, you're more likely to jump ship for something else.

I've quit many times while playing some MMO's but always go back. So leaving a game doesn't mean you're gone for good. But it's till true the more time and money you pt into it, the hardest it's to stay away permanently.

EDIT: Idk. Maybe all that's happened is now people who make lots of money but have little time can be competitive in MMO's. HOwever nice subscription model MMO's were and are, they disproportionately reward people who have time. People who don't have time fall behind, even if they have lots of money.

Still I can easily imagine a situation where the people with money now have a large edge over those with time. So if before the the people with time had an advantage, now it's in the favor of those with money.

I think a good subscription model would put limits on how much you gain from investing lots of time. The more time a player invests, the more rapidly the profits from that investment fall. This would help to make it fairer for people who have less time. People who have lots would dominate less. (And this model also would not reward those with lots of money.)

 

[Norfleet]

EDIT: Idk. Maybe all that's happened is now people who make lots of money but have little time can be competitive in MMO's. HOwever nice subscription model MMO's were and are, they disproportionately reward people who have time. People who don't have time fall behind, even if they have lots of money.

Well, considering that subscriptions are commonly sold in blocks of a month at a time, you're pretty much required to play the game 24/7, otherwise you're giving away money, as you do not receive credit or rollover for unused time. Just like paying for Internet by the month means that you NEVER, EVER DISCONNECT, otherwise you're wasting Internets.

 

[belowmecoldhands]

EDIT: Idk. Maybe all that's happened is now people who make lots of money but have little time can be competitive in MMO's. HOwever nice subscription model MMO's were and are, they disproportionately reward people who have time. People who don't have time fall behind, even if they have lots of money.

Well, considering that subscriptions are commonly sold in blocks of a month at a time, you're pretty much required to play the game 24/7, otherwise you're giving away money, as you do not receive credit or rollover for unused time. Just like paying for Internet by the month means that you NEVER, EVER DISCONNECT, otherwise you're wasting Internets.

I wouldn't say paying for a month long subscription means playing 24/7, but at least giving the game a real try is worth it. Many gamers have said it, but $20 is what you spend just going on a night out at the theatre. $15 isn't much for having access 30 days. Ofc, it's debatable what form of entertainment games provide. Anyway, the point is they invest some money, so it's harder to walk away. This is why I think having to subscribe to play meant players invested more effort into it.

This all occured to me sometime ago because I noticed I tried harder to play when I bought a subscription. It's like I felt I didn't want to waste my money. I had to give the game a bigger chance. That's not necessarily bad, I think.

I can extend this further. In the past, most MMO's were bought in the box stores. You did actually spend some money just to run the installer. Nowadays, most MMO's are downloaded for free. You install them and run the the game for free.

All of this "free" has made us more judgmental and more impulsive about the games we play.

I'l try to make a analogy to marriage. When mariage used to mean something, when the vows meant something, it was harder for couples to divorce. It was both religious and economic in nature. Nowadays, the vows don't mean much because divorce is easy and genders are more independent. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The couple is like "hey we might divorce someday" and that's exactly what happens. When marriage vows aren't held in high regard, it's easier to walk out on it.

 

[Ranselknulf]

EDIT: Idk. Maybe all that's happened is now people who make lots of money but have little time can be competitive in MMO's. HOwever nice subscription model MMO's were and are, they disproportionately reward people who have time. People who don't have time fall behind, even if they have lots of money.

Well, considering that subscriptions are commonly sold in blocks of a month at a time, you're pretty much required to play the game 24/7, otherwise you're giving away money, as you do not receive credit or rollover for unused time. Just like paying for Internet by the month means that you NEVER, EVER DISCONNECT, otherwise you're wasting Internets.

That's one way of looking at it.. another way is that by paying a subscription you are effectively reducing the number of player in the game at a given time. I think that the trade off is worthwhile even if I don't play 24/7.

All of this "free" has made us more judgmental and more impulsive about the games we play.

There is definitely a psychological component to enjoyment of free things vs paid things. People subconsciously give less value to free stuff and enjoy it less.

 

[Norfleet]

That's one way of looking at it.. another way is that by paying a subscription you are effectively reducing the number of player in the game at a given time. I think that the trade off is worthwhile even if I don't play 24/7.

I do not see how this logically follows. Why would your paying cause some other player to quit the game to reduce the number of players in the game?

There is definitely a psychological component to enjoyment of free things vs paid things. People subconsciously give less value to free stuff and enjoy it less.

I've never understood this kind of thinking and conclude that people who actually think like this are mentally defective. It's clearly illogical. The satisfaction of something is rightly proportional to the value of something minus the cost of it. If you pay more for something than it's worth, this is unsatisfying. If you pay exactly what something is worth, then you have gained nothing, and this is similarly unsatisfying, since you would have gotten the same result without having done anything at all. Satisfaction only occurs when you get something for less than its value. Free, therefore, offers the best possible outcome given an item of fixed value: It is always better to pay less than more, and the only thing that could possibly be better than free is if it costs negative money, meaning you get paid for it. Naturally, I like this option best! There are few pleasures in life greater than being paid, preferrably multiple times, for something you wanted to do anyway.

 

[Ranselknulf]

That's one way of looking at it.. another way is that by paying a subscription you are effectively reducing the number of player in the game at a given time. I think that the trade off is worthwhile even if I don't play 24/7.

I do not see how this logically follows. Why would your paying cause some other player to quit the game to reduce the number of players in the game?

It wouldn't cause them to quit, it would cause them to never start playing to begin with. I'm referring to F2P models vs subscription of course. People who want F2P would never join a subscription game thereby lessening the amount of people in the game.

There is definitely a psychological component to enjoyment of free things vs paid things. People subconsciously give less value to free stuff and enjoy it less.

I've never understood this kind of thinking and conclude that people who actually think like this are mentally defective. It's clearly illogical. The satisfaction of something is rightly proportional to the value of something minus the cost of it. If you pay more for something than it's worth, this is unsatisfying. If you pay exactly what something is worth, then you have gained nothing, and this is similarly unsatisfying, since you would have gotten the same result without having done anything at all. Satisfaction only occurs when you get something for less than its value. Free, therefore, offers the best possible outcome given an item of fixed value: It is always better to pay less than more, and the only thing that could possibly be better than free is if it costs negative money, meaning you get paid for it. Naturally, I like this option best! There are few pleasures in life greater than being paid, preferrably multiple times, for something you wanted to do anyway.

ITT Norfleet learns that people don't think logically when they enjoy something.

Prime example would be women cheating with obviously poor men, like a women who wrecks her marriage by sleeping with the pool boy. Logical? no. Fun sex? yes.

 

[Aenra]

let me tell you what i have learned;

- minus the language/expression, i see nothing but the same, same kind of conversations, same, same kind of deluded, unfounded hopes i would have come across in any pegi-12 game's forum

- minus the 'i am bitter' salad dressing you (hopefuly) self-consciously apply to your Codex personas, you are still stuck, both emotionally and intellectually, on a level that has nothing, absolutely fuck all to do with anything even closely resembling """quality""". Howsoever said quality is possible to actually be experienced within the systemic confines of an MMOrpg

it is extremely disappointing. It speaks volumes not of you, no one gives a damn about you, but of the market. Even the "niche" one. It is even more disappointing because i KNOW that even while you are reading this, you are either protesting already, or deciding to ignore this post because whatever; ie you are incapable of:
a) facilitating the experience and wisdom your last couple of decades of living should have granted you
b) comprehending what your behaviour and way of thinking signifies. In terms of audience, expectations, and as such final product(s)

you earned the demise we must all endure. You did. If i had any need to make myself feel better by explaining in detail, or the patience to waste a couple of pages' worth of posts to give you all the reasonings YOU yourselves have provided, i would have. I will just stick to my outcome. You on the other hand should stick to the fact that even IF, this or any Pantheon gets to succeed?
It won't be because of you. Ponder on that a bit. Before succumbing to the inevitable action of the comfortist selectivist. Dismissal.