Pantheon kickstarter

[Bruman]

Well, many Kickstarters looked doomed until the last couple of days where they get a huge deluge of pledges. You can't really use trends to predict if it'll fund or not.

That said, we're in the "trickle" phase. Definitely an uphill battle. I bet we'll be doing good to have $300-350k going into the last couple of days, so even with a big pledge push at the end, I don't know if it could overcome a gap that large.

Gonna be a long 29 days.

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by Bruman [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Well, many Kickstarters looked doomed until the last couple of days where they get a huge deluge of pledges. You can't really use trends to predict if it'll fund or not.

That said, we're in the "trickle" phase. Definitely an uphill battle. I bet we'll be doing good to have $300-350k going into the last couple of days, so even with a big pledge push at the end, I don't know if it could overcome a gap that large.

Gonna be a long 29 days.

I don't see it happening, not enough backers, but I guess it's all good for the attention it'll get. It gets many of the former players together somewhat and gets us all thinking about the future.

One of the things which crosses my mind is how a lot of the former EQ players are older now and don't have as much time to play these kinds of games. We all know how much time was required in EQ and how much more time "we" had back then. How do you find a way to please the older generation while also pleasing the younger crowd who're newly introduced? Granted, there might not be as many young people interested in a game like this, but I think there're still a "lot" of young adults interested in a mmorpg more like the old WoW than the newer WoW. There's places popping all over for classic WoW servers. I think classic WoW potentially has a lot in common with Pantheon, more in common than many might think. Perhaps Brad or the people doing Pantheon should review what classic WoW was like and see if they can't capitalize on it.

While I've always been hardcore and thought of WoW as being a carebear mmorpg, I confess I regret not experiencing WoW before the expansions. I haven't tried it, but if I did I'd try the older version.

Of course, modern gamers have probably moved well past memories of classic WoW, but keep in mind WoW was a big phenomenon and there're still probably hundreds of thousands of them reminiscing. So even though producing a game this way isn't going to be the latest and greatest, it might still be successful. This is assuming a game similar to classic WoW would be able to capitalize on the interest shown by some former or current players of WoW. It's possible only a replica of classic WoW would be able to pull this off.

One thing I'm thinking of is Pantheon needs to find a way to make it so when you're in a group you can still ninja-afk without huge consequences. Perhaps your character can disappear when you're afk or it can become like a mercenary. Anyway, I think finding a way to make Pantheon friendly to parents (who're more susceptible to 5 minute ninja afk's) and others in general who live a busy life is not a terrible idea. And of course there're those people that just need to go to the toilet or cook something fast. All in all, it'd be nice if the game could still feel hardcore while also not making us feel like we can't afk to fulfill basic functions.

[citizen1080]

Originally Posted by stormlord [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

One thing I'm thinking of is Pantheon needs to find a way to make it so when you're in a group you can still ninja-afk without huge consequences. Perhaps your character can disappear when you're afk or it can become like a mercenary. Anyway, I think finding a way to make Pantheon friendly to parents (who're more susceptible to 5 minute ninja afk's) and others in general who live a busy life is not a terrible idea. And of course there're those people that just need to go to the toilet or cook something fast. All in all, it'd be nice if the game could still feel hardcore while also not making us feel like we can't afk to fulfill basic functions.

I like the Merc idea very much. Would allow for those afk moments, and open a whole new world to boxing for those of us who like it. Think how many more people would box (and pay for the extra accounts) if they didn't have to struggle with the setup and software to make it work.

Personally I have boxed most games I have played, 2-3 boxed eq2, vanguard, swg, tabula rasa, firefall, 4 boxed EQ live and 16 boxed on Wow.

Boxing for me was a way to work on harder group content without having to sit lfg for hours. And let's face it, most MMO's are not rocket science, so just playing 1 toon would get boring for me.

I realize my opinion on boxing is counter to many people who play these games to socialize as they are mmorpg's. But I have a life and a social job and personally I don't play these games to make friends, I play to relax and enjoy myself and in the brave new word of instances and multiple shards on a single mega server, people boxing is not going to effect or impact other people really. I understand the argument against it in classic EQ as one person can lock down a group camp, but that is not an issue in todays gaming.

[A1551]

This kickstarter is still trending fine. It's certainly not doing as well as it *should* be doing and I am pretty sure the dev team was hoping to easily make the 800k well before the time was up with a lot of progress on the stretch goals. The way things are playing out is pretty standard for large budget gaming projects that meet their goals (without massively exceeding them). Assuming the team behind the project is doing what they need to be doing to get the word out this still probably has the potential to hit the million dollarish mark, maybe more if they can hit the right populations.

its been mentioned before but these things follow a pattern in terms of pledges where you get a big initial bump then things slow down (often to a virtual crawl) and then slowly speed up as the project gets near the end, with a major uptick right near the end.

It is very common to see >50% of the $$ to come in the last 25% of the kickstarter. If you see this at $400,000 with 10 days left, (29 to go currently at 221k) chances are pretty good it succeeds.

Expect a major PR blitz near the end -- the team should be generating a lot of media content to release and lining up coverage from a lot sites for the same timeframe. It's a balancing act for them as they need to do a certain amount of PR work now to keep funds going up at least slowly, but at the same time any PR work they do now will be a lot less valuable than similar work done near the end, and opportunities are not endless.

For example, a published interview on RPS today might net them a $$ bump but the same interview with 5 days to go will result in a much larger bump. And RPS will only run so many pieces on pantheon. And when(if) this does finally fund, RPS probably runs another article saying it funded, and then a bunch of people pledge because it succeeded. Which all just reinforces that a lot of the funding will come nearer the end.

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by A1551 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This kickstarter is still trending fine. It's certainly not doing as well as it *should* be doing and I am pretty sure the dev team was hoping to easily make the 800k well before the time was up with a lot of progress on the stretch goals. The way things are playing out is pretty standard for large budget gaming projects that meet their goals (without massively exceeding them). Assuming the team behind the project is doing what they need to be doing to get the word out this still probably has the potential to hit the million dollarish mark, maybe more if they can hit the right populations.
..............

That'd definitely be something new to me. I look at the kickstarter and I just don't see enough backers. Count me as someone who learns something new if this comes to place as you say.

[Treefall]

No...no...no..................
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Skill Chains and Sympathetics

Skill chains are a series of super abilities executed in a particular order. These abilities are executed by multiple players. When a skill chain is completed an additional effect fires, this effect is called a sympathetic ability. There is only a certain window of time between each ability activation that the next qualifying one can be. If the player has discovered the chain their ability will light up if they have a qualifying ability letting them know they need to fire that ability next in order to take the chain to the next level.

Chain discovery occurs through experimentation. In order to discover they must try different combinations until they successfully complete the chain. When a chain is initially discovered it is entered into the tome of war. Only through practice can the player unlock the chain, fully gaining its biggest benefit.
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What I hated most from EverQuest 2 is making its way into Pantheon. FML.

[Ceythos]

Originally Posted by Treefall [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

No...no...no..................
--------
Skill Chains and Sympathetics

Skill chains are a series of super abilities executed in a particular order. These abilities are executed by multiple players. When a skill chain is completed an additional effect fires, this effect is called a sympathetic ability. There is only a certain window of time between each ability activation that the next qualifying one can be. If the player has discovered the chain their ability will light up if they have a qualifying ability letting them know they need to fire that ability next in order to take the chain to the next level.

Chain discovery occurs through experimentation. In order to discover they must try different combinations until they successfully complete the chain. When a chain is initially discovered it is entered into the tome of war. Only through practice can the player unlock the chain, fully gaining its biggest benefit.
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What I hated most from EverQuest 2 is making its way into Pantheon. FML.

I'm glad you brought up Eq2 in this example. We've already discussed that as a team as one of our concerns, we don't want it to take on that implementation in Pantheon. If I had to cite an example though, FFXI's skillchain system would be a better one for what we want to do.