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

luj1

You're all shills
Vatnik
Joined
Jan 2, 2016
Messages
15,170
Location
Eastern block
AHAHAHHAHAHHAHA just remembered this existed
 

Caim

Arcane
Joined
Aug 1, 2013
Messages
17,534
Location
Dutchland
I mean, if you look at it as an early pre-alpha game it's not THAT bad... but remind me how long it has been in this state?
 

Beastro

Arcane
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
9,567
Location
where east is west
This game fell flat on its face at the start and never got up.

Maybe the Fires of Heaven forum still has archives to go through, but the first KS failed and Brad was left with making power hungry rando forum mods devs.

That it's still going is depressing. This finally needs to be buried along with Brad.
 

anvi

Prophet
Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
8,422
Location
Kelethin
It had a tragic journey. People were unfair at the start and Fires of Heaven created most of the hate. That community turned on Brad and hated him for what happened with Vanguard, and I never felt it was justified. The public can be such bandwagoning fucks. Brad was key to EQ so was a gaming god to people for a while, then Vanguard went badly and they turned on him. They built all these narratives about how evil and terrible Brad was, he fired all the staff in the parking lot, was a crackhead, etc. Most of it wasn't even true, and everyone losing their job is what happens when a company falls apart... The blame should have fell to Microsoft who fucked the project, but people didn't know about this until too late and they didn't care, and by then they just used it to blame Brad even more for not tying Microsoft into a contract earlier.

I loved Vanguard even though it was a fuck up. The way I saw it, even if you consider it a total failure, Brad made EQ which was a huge success, and then Vanguard which failed. So at worst his record should have been seen as 50/50. That's even if you ignore the two expansions he did for EQ which people loved so much they now consider it "EQ Classic". But people wanted to forget EverQuest and judge him by his last game which was a failure. It never made sense to me. It was all so fuelled by sperg nerds, hysteria, drama, and personal butthurt feelings. To me anyone who actually cares about gaming should have wanted to encourage Brad to try again, and most of the comments I saw online were exactly that. But the vocal minority wanted to tear him down. I never follow game devs including Brad so maybe all of them have this nerdy shitbag audience. But I suspected someone's agenda was hard at work because there was so much constant hate towards Brad and Vanguard that seemed unnatural.

So Pantheon was announced to this hostile audience. The Kickstarter was also far too primitive and basic. I think they assumed there would a lot of excitement from the fans who would understand that it was more proof of concept. And there were a lot of fans waiting for him to come up with something, but their Kickstarter was just too barebones, I wasn't surprised it failed. At that point I thought the project would end, but it managed to keep limping along with a few people working on it for free in their spare time. And these volunteers grew, but it also included some very questionable people who FOH tore apart. I was with them on that. Then the project turned around. They ditched the bad people and got some good people working on it. They set up the company with a professional management team and Brad was just the creative officer. Then they were talking about how they had an "Angel investor" and things really grew. Their website became slick and they started making good looking screenshots and class design and stuff. People started funding them via the website. Things looked to be going well for a while. They did some videos where they played as a group with various streamers, and it started looking like they had the beginnings of a real game. There were some good moments like when they finished in a dungeon and ran back to town and were thanking the audience for watching and talking about what would be in the next video. Then a mob had followed one of them back, it attacks them and wipes out the group. It was so classic EQ ish. The audience loved it and I thought the game had a chance.

They built some nice looking areas and character models, the UI really improved, they had people working on lighting and stuff which really improved the look. At that point I was happy to just tune out and wait a few years for them to build it. But a year or two later it was clear they were polishing and tinkering on a tiny area and still only working part time. It still looked promising because if they had a really good "vertical slice" they could use it to get more investment to just duplicate it and make more areas and take it closer to a full game. But at some point in these years Brad died. They said they would continue, but I think he was the main reason anyone ever invested in the project. For years since then they have been all smoke and mirrors, talking constantly about what they are making and doing, yet nothing was ever shown, just the same few areas they did in steams which looked boring and undeveloped. I figured if they had a bunch of people slaving away through those years, then someone might want to buy the project and finish it off. But it became obvious they didn't have anything to show, it was all tease. And whenever they did break down and show some actual in game video, it looked bad. This was years ago. Since then they have just been all talk. I hoped someone might buy the company and finish the project. But now I think it's probably just a pile of unfinished work that nobody wants, and these guys are desperate to recoup some of the time and and money they spent on it.
 
Last edited:

GhostCow

Balanced Gamer
Patron
Joined
Jan 2, 2020
Messages
4,000
I wish I could go back in time and firebomb the Blizzard offices to stop the creation of WoW and all of the decline it brought to the MMO genre. Might have to go back in time and prevent Warhammer from being created too, just in case.
 

Tweed

Professional Kobold
Patron
Joined
Sep 27, 2018
Messages
3,046
Location
harsh circumstances
Pathfinder: Wrath
Cool, now there's absolutely nothing whatsoever to set your MMO apart from every other has-been, also-ran, and WoW clone in existence. Surely this will succeed where countless dozens have failed.

Also, fuck FoH, they were nothing but drama queens on The Combine and the GMs were always on their side.
 

frajaq

Erudite
Joined
Oct 5, 2017
Messages
2,580
Location
Brazil
the mark of decline...

dOEMOMO.png
 

Beastro

Arcane
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
9,567
Location
where east is west
Also, fuck FoH, they were nothing but drama queens on The Combine and the GMs were always on their side.
That's half the fun of them.

Like when the guy who ran their forums since the guild's beginning dropped them forcing a migration.

One of the guild's original "den mom" officers stepped up and bought a forum for them to move to. Drama then broke out when someone peeked at the info of the owner of the new forum and realized it was registered under a guy's name: He'd been masquerading as a women in the guild for almost 20 years.
 

fuzz

Liturgist
Joined
Aug 26, 2011
Messages
161
Location
Bakersfield
With this change, they are at least secured on the content front for youtube for years. Upcoming:
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen Environmental Art - How It's Made in the painting style
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen - Painting Art Update Reel
The Technical Art of painting Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen - Updates From The Art painting Department
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen - Art painting and World Building Update
<Current month> Developer Roundtable - Writing and Art painting with so-and-so
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen - PreAlpha 2023 vs 2024 Comparison


Might as well bring that deer back, won't stand out now.
https://www.change.org/p/bring-back-wip-the-low-poly-deer-to-pantheon
 

Turn_BASED

Educated
Joined
Jul 2, 2022
Messages
264
People were dunking on this "smiling wolf" that was revealed alongside the new art:

aw5rgeiyi2qb1.png


So one of the Pantheon team posted this to "own" everyone complaining:
v28eb70ki2qb1.png


Oh yeah... much better. Now I will buy your mobile game!
 

Jaesun

Fabulous Ex-Moderator
Patron
Joined
May 14, 2004
Messages
37,449
Location
Seattle, WA USA
MCA Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech
I do get that some people like this kind of cartoony art style. This just isn't doing it for me though. I also never liked the WOW look either.
 

luj1

You're all shills
Vatnik
Joined
Jan 2, 2016
Messages
15,170
Location
Eastern block
Why is this still alive

I actually remember like 10 years ago race concepts for this thing looked kinda cool and original

Now it is an infantile turd
 

ADL

Prophet
Joined
Oct 23, 2017
Messages
4,127
Location
Nantucket
https://massivelyop.com/2023/11/14/...7-extraction-mode-we-have-damaged-your-trust/
“We knew there would be some uneasiness when we introduced a survival extraction testing mode, but we hoped that it would be an enjoyable, replayable experience that would provide critical data for development, and potentially some additional funding to accelerate delivery of the full MMO game. However, our hopes didn’t line up with what you felt. The Pantheon community made it clear that the 247 test mode is not the reason they support us, and we need to listen to that. […] We understand that for many of you, we have damaged your trust. That’s on us. For those who will give us the opportunity to rebuild that trust, we thank you. For those who are not yet ready to believe in us or the project again, we understand, and hope we can earn back your support in the future.”
 

GhostCow

Balanced Gamer
Patron
Joined
Jan 2, 2020
Messages
4,000
https://massivelyop.com/2023/11/14/...7-extraction-mode-we-have-damaged-your-trust/
“We knew there would be some uneasiness when we introduced a survival extraction testing mode, but we hoped that it would be an enjoyable, replayable experience that would provide critical data for development, and potentially some additional funding to accelerate delivery of the full MMO game. However, our hopes didn’t line up with what you felt. The Pantheon community made it clear that the 247 test mode is not the reason they support us, and we need to listen to that. […] We understand that for many of you, we have damaged your trust. That’s on us. For those who will give us the opportunity to rebuild that trust, we thank you. For those who are not yet ready to believe in us or the project again, we understand, and hope we can earn back your support in the future.”
I just want it to die already at this point
 

ADL

Prophet
Joined
Oct 23, 2017
Messages
4,127
Location
Nantucket
https://massivelyop.com/2023/12/21/...de-the-community-quite-literally-freaked-out/
“Originally envisioned as a way to keep the testers happy and radically accelerate Pantheon feature and content development, while also ideating on a future PvP mode of Pantheon, 247 Test mode launched us forward on so many fronts. Everything accelerated, but when the concept was introduced to the community and we mentioned that we were considering monetizing it to help fund accelerated Pantheon development, the community quite literally freaked out. They thought we were abandoning Pantheon (we weren’t) and made it painfully clear that they didn’t like 247. We listened and shifted right back to full development focus on the MMO mode of Pantheon, almost overnight.”
These motherfuckers lmao
 

ADL

Prophet
Joined
Oct 23, 2017
Messages
4,127
Location
Nantucket
Key: MMOBOMB

How to use your Key:​

1. Register a free account at account.pantheonmmo.com
2. Click Register at the bottom right and follow the instructions.
3. From the Manage Accounts Page, click Redeem Code (top navigation)
4. Enter the code provided. Game activation instructions will be sent to your email before July 27th.
5. Go to pantheonmmo.com/download and follow the instructions to download and install the game.
6. Log in between July 27th and August 3rd to play!
 

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