Is it me or does Pantheon look like crap?

[Cecily]

At one point, my only reason to keep living was my curiousity about what video games would be like in the future. This game makes me think that was a mistake.

[getlostgreg]

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

i would not expect it anytime soon unless they sell the IP

During one of the Brad memorial streams the dwarf lady mentioned that they've been searching for publishers and more investors since Brad passed.

[Glacios]

I haven't had a chance to watch the stream yet but I skimmed the responses of forum users and it seemed fairly positive:

Pantheon Dev Stream

[Hazek]

You'd think they'd realize the importance of proper mob reaction sounds and flinching by now at minimum. Hard to stay hopeful when something as obvious as that is overlooked.

[Danth]

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

so sick of the years away from launch on all these games and nothing has come out for what 10 years?

we have more money and computing power then ever yet games come out even slower

get funding, hire more indian kids and get to work. if it takes longer then a year to release you are trying to do too much content, get your project out there and start earning money

It's a variant or consequence of "Wirth's Law" in practice. As technology progresses, games (and all sorts of software more generally) are becoming more and more complicated at a rate faster than development tools are improving. Hence development cycles take longer and longer. This reality has undoubtedly harmed the MMORPG genre specifically since such games have become too expensive to build quickly and expect a reasonable return, and too slow to build cheaply for most investors to tolerate. Concepts like Unity were intended to help solve these problems but haven't yet made more than a modest dent.

Danth

[Renfail]

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

It's a variant or consequence of "Wirth's Law" in practice. As technology progresses, games (and all sorts of software more generally) are becoming more and more complicated at a rate faster than development tools are improving. Hence development cycles take longer and longer. This reality has undoubtedly harmed the MMORPG genre specifically since such games have become too expensive to build quickly and expect a reasonable return, and too slow to build cheaply for most investors to tolerate. Concepts like Unity were intended to help solve these problems but haven't yet made more than a modest dent.

Danth

While that may factor in, there's a lot more at work.

First and foremost, in the "traditional" development cycle from an established company with an existing budget, a company wouldn't release information about their game until it was at the most, two years out from launch. They would already have a fairly solid product by that point, with enough polish on it to be ready to start teasing to the public what was coming out in the relatively near future.

In the above scenario, the illusion is that games only take a "few years" to develop, because players were never privy to the four-to-six years of development time that took place prior to the publicity, and thus players never felt like it was taking "ages and ages" for a game on their radar to reach completion.

Enter crowdfunding and the way a lot of indie teams are doing things these days, ourselves included. In order to generate interest from investors or publishers, you must first generate interest from players and prove the value of your idea. In order to do that, you need to showcase your idea or, better yet, some form of a playable tech demo. You come up with your pitch, launch your demo, get some followers and/or Kickstarter money, and from there you head to investors/publishers.

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding.

Pushing projects into the public eye at such an early stage is something that had, up until the last half dozen years or so, never been done before. No one has ever seen pre-alphas; traditionally those were always done internally, and the product never shown to the public until it was ready for beta. At the very least, only select testers would get involved during an alpha, and most alphas don't start until at least two to three years of work has already been done on a pre-alpha product.

A traditional MMORPG follows a development cycle that is somewhat like: one year of armchair design/creating the master design document; two to three years of programming and pre-alpha; two to four years of alpha; around a year of beta, half of which is public.

On the short end, you're looking at a six year development cycle. On the longer end, anywhere from eight to nine years.

Up until this past decade, players had never been privy to the massive chunk of time most companies put into games before sharing them with the public. Once indie companies starting sharing things right out of the gate as soon as there was a master document and/or the tech demo ready to go, suddenly players were exposed to anywhere from four to six years of development time that they had previously never seen before.

"This game looks like shit", people will say of any indie game that is showing footage from pre-alpha or alpha. Of course it does. You've never seen games in this early stage of development before.

It's like looking at a house being built and only seeing the foundation and the framing and claiming "this house looks like shit". Of course it does. It's not finished. It hasn't had drywall hung, flooring installed, siding, roofing, paint, interior decoration, and beyond. Only when the house is finished can you make a judgement call on whether or not it is a "beautiful" home.

"It's taking forever", they say. Not really. It's taking the same time it's always taken. You just never saw the ingredients being mixed together before they were baked into the cake that then had icing put on it while you watched and salivated in anticipation.

Development cycles aren't any longer today on MMORPGs than they were a decade ago. In fact, the tools have gotten better and better and easier to use, networking solutions exist today that weren't even imagined back in 1999, and teams like ours with ZERO previous experience have been able to make a big enough impression to land investors + publisher interest (not that we've accepted any of the offers since everyone to-dated has wanted us to go free to play with a cash shop and we're hardwired for buy-to-play with a monthly sub; I've turned down between 2 and 4 million dollar offers from publishers like Gamigo, Jagex, and Perfect World Entertanment starting back in 2017).

So it's a little bit of everything.

For us, personally, we'll be seven-to-eight year bracket if we hit all of our targets on the head. Right on the money in terms of how long a traditional MMORPG takes to get built.

[Danth]

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

Development cycles aren't any longer today on MMORPGs than they were a decade ago.

Right. I was thinking longer term. The progression of technology has been pronounced. Atari games took one guy a few weeks to make. Nintendo games, a small team maybe a couple months. Early MMORPG's like EQ (~3 years start to finish) and DAOC (~2 years) were slow even for standards of their era, but still manageable. Warcraft took what, ~4 years and 70-80 million dollars? It was very slow and hugely expensive for its era, but as it turned out it was merely highlighting the new normal. Vanguard took ~4.5 years and came out prematurely, to its doom. As you mention, since about that time things have stabilized somewhat, probably because pressure (time, funding, etc) won't really permit development cycles to keep growing forever--there's a practical limit that we've probably reached.

I had read about Lucimia years ago but quite forgot about it. Thanks for posting, I'll keep an eye on your progress. The wife and I have been looking for interesting traditional-style online role playing games for awhile now.

As an aside, I *have* seen "Alpha" Everquest. It looked bad, really really bad. You aren't kidding about the risks involved with releasing alpha footage. I understand the nature of such things but a lot of folks don't.

Danth

[Renfail]

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

Right. I was thinking longer term. The progression of technology has been pronounced. Atari games took one guy a few weeks to make. Nintendo games, a small team maybe a couple months. Early MMORPG's like EQ (~3 years start to finish) and DAOC (~2 years) were slow even for standards of their era, but still manageable. Warcraft took what, ~4 years and 70-80 million dollars? It was very slow and hugely expensive for its era, but as it turned out it was merely highlighting the new normal. Vanguard took ~4.5 years and came out prematurely, to its doom. As you mention, since about that time things have stabilized somewhat, probably because pressure (time, funding, etc) won't really permit development cycles to keep growing forever--there's a practical limit that we've probably reached.

I had read about Lucimia years ago but quite forgot about it. Thanks for posting, I'll keep an eye on your progress. The wife and I have been looking for interesting traditional-style online role playing games for awhile now.

As an aside, I *have* seen "Alpha" Everquest. It looked bad, really really bad. You aren't kidding about the risks involved with releasing alpha footage. I understand the nature of such things but a lot of folks don't.

Danth

To the first: Yep!

To the second: Glad you find it interesting. We're still a couple years away, so a lot of work still to get done.

To the third: Risky, but can be rewarding if it's done right. But yeah, there is a downside in terms of the lot of folks who don't. Plus side, they are a manageable risk, from the broader perspective.

[Smellybuttface]

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

Didnt read your post but if your game takes years it will be pointless and youll make nothing.

Right now is a good opportunity to release something and have it be very successful and profitable, the only current "Hot" Game is classic wow and its literally re released content, they pulled in 8-9m subs and i bet you dont even have 10k in the bank due to your dirt poor thinking process

You sound like a level-headed, reasonable, intelligent economist. Certainly knows what he’s talking about, and understands the intricacies of developing and releasing intellectual property.

[aspomwell]

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

You sound like a level-headed, reasonable, intelligent economist. Certainly knows what he’s talking about, and understands the intricacies of developing and releasing intellectual property.

And you can tell them Smellybuttface said so!

(sorry, I'm still cracking up over this post/username combo...)