Pantheon

[Botten]

October 18, 2023 6:00 PM
Pantheon confirms ‘247’ extraction play mode rumors: ‘This is not a cancellation of Pantheon’ (https://massivelyop.com/2023/10/18/pantheon-confirms-247-extraction-play-mode-rumors-this-is-not-a-cancellation-of-pantheon/)

“In regards to some posts you may have seen this week, we would like to offer some clarity,” Dean wrote in the public Discord. “The 247 play mode began life as a testing tool. We soon saw its potential to stand on its own feet. We believe the marriage between MMO and Extraction is something that will speak to a much larger audience than we have reached to date and we are exploring that opportunity. This is not a cancellation of Pantheon, as Pantheon and 247 are symbiotic and developed in tandem. If we choose to monetize 247 and it is successful, it could potentially allow Pantheon to launch much sooner than currently projected. We will outline 247 and what it means to our players in our Producer’s Letter Thursday, Oct. 26.”


Producer’s Letter Thursday, Oct. 26 (https://www.pantheonmmo.com/newsletter/_2023/october/)


Video of 247 Basic Overview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mcLSEBo2-s&t=3s)

[Evia]

Pantheon is not coming out
If it does(it wont), it won't be Brad's vision
Hope this helps

[Swish]

They've been doing videos/streams mirroring what EQ Next did... essentially updating gamers on tiny details of the smallest part of the game over and over and over.

EQ Next never made it, and this isn't going to either.

[Ooloo]

Hay guys keeeeeeshar can really rough'n'tumble over those ledges!!

[Ooloo]

Look at this totally canned way to interact with the environment! Just like diablo 4; hit space bar to do a thing that you can't not-do!

[wuanahto]

the moment brad died is when i knew this was not going to be a thing anymore

[Evia]

the moment brad died is when i knew this was not going to be a thing anymore
Exactly this.
Of course I'm not surprised OP still believes what they say, as he's proven time and time again on these forums that he'll gobble up any and all propaganda bullshit thrown his way.

[Botten]

Oh I am with you. Just didn't see the community bring up this recent news.

Guess all hope has been lost.

[magnetaress]

I heard in EQ next demos they made they didn't even have pathing in so other devs played the mobs lol

[Lune]

Did Brad kill Pantheon, or did Pantheon kill Brad?

https://i.imgur.com/KMsrI6J.jpg

[booter]

man pantheon looks like something that eight 2023 hackathon kids could cook up in a weekend

it needed to be released about 10 year ago

sorry and gl brad

[Homesteaded]

Finally ready to come to terms with this game being dead.

[Ooloo]

It's heartening that this thread contains many posters I often vehemently argue with, but we're all united in shitting on pantheon lol

I do *want* it to come out and be good, but it just feels like rooting for an underdog that is guaranteed to let you down rather than just being very likely to.

[Toxigen]

The devs used all the kickstarter money on hookers and blow to celebrate Brad.

[booter]

Brad used all the kickstarter money on blow

ftfy

[Byrjun]

To people who are out of the loop, VR promised that "24/7 testing" would be available soon to supporters, but instead launched this new game mode that they called "247".

It's kinda impressive just how abusive they are to their investors.

[Duik]

That is world class grifting right there.
Fucking hilarious.

We give you 2 dollabucks for 7.
Imma try dat.

[Swish]

I would have been a backer if the kickstarter hit its target but I didn't back it when they tried again off kickstarter. At this point I'm glad I didn't but I feel bad for people who put in $1000 or whatever :(

[cd288]

They just dropped the 247 mode completely. They also lifted the pre-alpha NDA so everyone can talk about the game and their testing experiences, with the caveat that the "visual" NDA remains in place so VR has to approve any videos or screenshots that are sent out

[Swish]

I think the damage is done lol

[Evia]

Oh really? Wow. Well I guess that means the game must be coming out now for sure!! For realsies this time!!

[magnetaress]

Did Brad kill Pantheon, or did Pantheon kill Brad?

https://i.imgur.com/KMsrI6J.jpg

killed brad, brad was a good dude, just got reemed by toxic ppl in the industry :( such is life

[Bardp1999]

9 years of development and still in pre-alpha, I used to joke it would come out in 2025 but that seems way to optimistic now

[Bisonzabi]

This game was dead in the water when they failed to meet their kickstarter pledge back in early 2014.
I seen people elsewhere point to Brad's death being the reason that Pantheon is failing, but I'll never forget how catastrophic Vanguard's development was or how lighten up the Sigil forums were post-launch in 2007. Plus it's not like this game was going anywhere for almost 6 years by the time he died...
A great refresher down memory lane for those who did forget
(https://web.archive.org/web/20080108110914/http://www.fohguild.org/forums/mmorpg-general-discussion/31593-vg-producers-letter-49.html#post945201)

[cannobeers2]

Unfortunately, 'actual work' MMO is a party of one, and here we are. Pantheon was a great idea, but it seems like it ain't going to make it to production.

The kids (adults or otherwise) want instant gratification.

Also, a lot of the hardcore EQ players are rather...off-putting, so nobody wants that in decent society. Looking at you, multi-thousand-post people.

[Bisonzabi]

Ideas are dime a dozen, its all about execution. And Pantheon already existed, it was called Vanguard. What they should've done is bought the rights to V:SOH from SoE in 2014 since it was being scheduled to be shutdown and worth nothing to them, retool it to w/e Brad initially wanted or felt was missing from its conception and then try to lure people into something akin to what Square did to FFXIV 2.0. And as much as I rip that game and Brad, I really wanted it to succeed back then, I bought that Collectors Edition box and hoped for the best despite all the warning signs, but damn was I burned by the final janky unoptimized mess and thats an understatement. Anyone remember how horrendous the January 2007 open beta was?
And regarding "instant gratification", the only reason why EQ was able to get away with its jank and dripfeed grind is because it was the first truly 3D game in an emerging genre, which in turn, has declined drastically in the last 12 years. There's a reason why all of the most popular MMO's are ones that came out 10-14 years ago excluding WoW and EVE Online. Nobody is making them anymore since they're redundant and their novelty wore off. And nobody sure has hell wants go back to the days of paying $15 a month to "work"

[Ooloo]

killed brad, brad was a good dude, just got reemed by toxic ppl in the industry :( such is life

I remember brad posted on somethingawful for a while about pantheon early on and basically everybody just invaded his thread and shit on him and ran him out of the forum, which sucked cause he was like right there to talk to but everyone had to be an angry cynical nerd at him.

Shame what that place turned into. This off-topic forum and r&f are at least like a small sliver of when the SA forums were entertaining.

[Topgunben]

To me the biggest pitfall developers fall into is focusing on graphics and animations more than gameplay.

Minecraft is actually the ultimate case-in-point. Minecraft graphics aren’t very good, and the animations are hilariously bad, but the gameplay makes up for it.

Monsters and Memories is actually exactly what developers should be doing. It’s about the only MMO/RPG I am looking forward to. I just put 40 hours into Diablo 4 and I feel sick of how bad it sucks. They missed the mark in so many ways. Diablo 2 resurrected is actually way better.

Which does bring me to my last point. The company that reskinned Diablo 2 for D2 resurrected used a lot of AI to redraw all the textures. I think game developers would be better off to grab old titles like Diablo, gothic, Baldurs Gate, EQ etc and just update the graphics. The gameplay for those games is already solid.

[Ooloo]

Yeah EQ:Next would have probably done decently well if it had just been a reskinned EQ1 in a modern engine. They went mental with absract design concepts about npc factions organically taking over one another and all this crap, and never had a single thing to show for any of it outside of some totally canned scripted in-engine scenes they showed at SOE live or something.

Everyone has to reinvent the wheel and it almost always fails.

[Topgunben]

Yeah EQ:Next would have probably done decently well if it had just been a reskinned EQ1 in a modern engine. They went mental with absract design concepts about npc factions organically taking over one another and all this crap, and never had a single thing to show for any of it outside of some totally canned scripted in-engine scenes they showed at SOE live or something.

Everyone has to reinvent the wheel and it almost always fails.

Maybe the player base is just as much to blame though. All the pay to win, micro transactions, easy mode, everyone gets to top level in a week - it just doesn’t breed an environment for developers to focus on quality content.

Classic EverQuest, even with the best graphics may not work today, and certainly wouldn’t garner a million sales. I’d still play the hell out of it.

Honestly the one thing I am looking forward to with AI over the next 20 years is being able to have it build me video game code for any game I want.

[Ooloo]

Yeah, it would definitely be a niche thing today. But I think a talented efficient team could pull it off and have it still be profitable even with a niche number of subs, and yeah I'd play the hell out of it too.

I played EQ2 from launch through the first expansion and I just never really felt invested in my character, even though for the time the graphics were fairly impressive. It was cause of the gameplay changes they made compared to EQ1. It was pretty fun in it's own right but after burning through 1-50 and getting my prismatic on my shaman I had no interest in continuing and went back to playing EQ1 lol.

[Topgunben]

Yeah, it would definitely be a niche thing today. But I think a talented efficient team could pull it off and have it still be profitable even with a niche number of subs, and yeah I'd play the hell out of it too.

I played EQ2 from launch through the first expansion and I just never really felt invested in my character, even though for the time the graphics were fairly impressive. It was cause of the gameplay changes they made compared to EQ1. It was pretty fun in it's own right but after burning through 1-50 and getting my prismatic on my shaman I had no interest in continuing and went back to playing EQ1 lol.

For some reason I couldn’t get into EQ2. Maybe it’s because I started a year late, but it seemed to me a little less social and a little more run and gun. I also don’t like how they started everyone out in 2 cities instead of having home towns per race. In the end I dropped it after about 2 months. Maybe it’s me though.

[Bisonzabi]

I remember brad posted on somethingawful for a while about pantheon early on and basically everybody just invaded his thread and shit on him and ran him out of the forum, which sucked cause he was like right there to talk to but everyone had to be an angry cynical nerd at him.

Shame what that place turned into. This off-topic forum and r&f are at least like a small sliver of when the SA forums were entertaining.

Replying to a banned account, but regardless, Brad never admitted his faults with Vanguard. And that's why there was a lot of ire regarding his reputation. If you're unable to recognize your failures and admit your mistakes, why would anyone trust you in another bout of the same song and dance? Nothing new either in the game industry. John Romero still gets flak for Diakatana and George Broussard still gets grilled over Duke Nukem Forever.