Originally posted by Ginaz I wouldn't be surprised that in the last week we see a surge in donations that miraculously saves the KS. By hook or by crook, this is going to get funded.
While I admire your sense of speculation and doubt, I seriously doubt that SoE has anything to do with the project at this point. I'm not ruling out that would get involved later because that would be incredibly dumb of me to do however. Why wouldn't anyone want to get involved? Especially SoE. They know first hand what EQ did for them and if Brad is able to make a game to do it again they would be all over it. EQ is still one of the longest running MMOs with a pretty decent sub base that they are making money off of to this day.
I hope that this is able to be majority crowdfunded so that we (the players and devs) have more say so over what happens to it but realistically speaking they will need some type of investor to get the game completely funded and on the shelves. So here's hoping that it doesn't end up with a big name publisher that will kill everything that we want to see
Yes SOE bought Vanguard - it was a fire sale purchase; they took very little on board. Very few people and from memory no physical assets. SOE also bought MXO and did a deal with Flying Labs to publish PotBS. They are still trying to find the next EQ.
Yes Brad got a "position" but it is a jump to suggest that this is an SOE game via Brad via Kickstarter.
For me the bigger question is Brad's track record. Vanguard launched unfinished - the money ran out and there were tales of friends and relatives on the payroll and money squandered. Ordinarily that would be between the owners of the company and the people running the business. When the funding is Kickstarter its a key question. Hopefully those who opt to fund the project know the risks.
Pantheon will not be made for $800k. If they reach their initial goal on kickstarter, they will probably use that as proof of concept and shop around for a publisher or at least some bigger investors to help them get the game out the door. For the money they are asking, you are not going to get much more than the most basic of games, probably more like an extended demo, and if you watch the videos and read the kickstarter page they say as much.
This is exactly what they're doing. The 800k is just to get things going so they can start seriously investing money in the project and begin at least making a living with it. They've worked up 'til now completely pro bono; out of their own pockets, and will continue to do so until the KS finishes successfully.
The 800k is just the initial wave of funding. They already have other potential sources they'll pursue as well.
The problem is Vanguard had to have had a much larger budget and Mcquaid couldn't get that off the ground in one piece. How are they going to get Pantheon made for under a million dollars? Even if they scale it way back leaving out classes and core mmo mechanics like crafting and such, how much content can they even make if they don't pass the million dollar mark? McQuaid states as much that this kickstarter is to get the development team up and running and that development could be very limited if they don't meet some of their stretch goals.
Put simply: Pantheon =/= Vanguard. I understand where people are hesitant given all the problems Vanguard had, but it's really not a fair comparison. They're taking a drastically different approach, with a significantly narrower focus with Pantheon than they did with Vanguard.
With Vanguard (as Brad has already acknowledged and discussed (see the Boogie interview, for one source of this)) they ran into a number of problems, some being directly in Brad's control (overshooting what they could realistically create with the time and budget they had) and some not being in his control at all (regime change at MS which ended up working against them).
They're quite deliberately staying much more focused and keeping things more realistic in terms of what they're attempting to do for launch, and what they're promising for various stretch goals.
I hope they can work it out, but at the moment I have a Vanguard collectors edition sitting in a box somewhere that reminds me I don't want to pay a lot of money again for half a game. The music cd that came with it was good though, still listen to it sometimes.
Unfortunate. Despite its technical issues and such (which were the main source of its problems), I think Vanguard offers up a very deep and expansive experience. Not only can you get a good idea of the kind of depth of gameplay Brad likes to achieve in his games, you can also get an appreciation of why they had so much trouble getting it out the door in a finished/polished state with the money they had to work with (a fraction of what some MMOs these days have). The game is simply massive, and I don't only mean in terms of land size.
Oh kickstarter. A place where the average Joe (Who has no clue about investing, potential, vision, etc), gets to throw their money at people who know how to exploit these people who have no clue. It is really hilarious watching these fail games get put up and the monkeys ready to throw them their banana's.
Granted, it is your money, you earned it so you can throw it where you want to. But don't complain to the rest of the country about being a part of the 99%. It's your own damn fault for being so stupid.
i know the feeling......I was tampted to "support" this project but then again today i see it only has 16 days left to get 800K funding and i can't seem to find ONE good gameplay movie of this game anywhere......i am not paying for something i can' t even see........the devs being like "its an awesome game just like the ones we had to leave BUT we need your money for it AGAIN".
Oh kickstarter. A place where the average Joe (Who has no clue about investing, potential, vision, etc), gets to throw their money at people who know how to exploit these people who have no clue. It is really hilarious watching these fail games get put up and the monkeys ready to throw them their banana's.
Granted, it is your money, you earned it so you can throw it where you want to. But don't complain to the rest of the country about being a part of the 99%. It's your own damn fault for being so stupid.
i know the feeling......I was tampted to "support" this project but then again today i see it only has 16 days left to get 800K funding and i can't seem to find ONE good gameplay movie of this game anywhere......i am not paying for something i can' t even see........the devs being like "its an awesome game just like the ones we had to leave BUT we need your money for it AGAIN".
No gameplay footage is no money....just NO!
Many Kickstarters are about funding ideas. McQuaid and co having over one hundred years experience amongst them are banking on the fact that people remember and have beloved memories of games like Everquest and the optimized version of Vanguard.
They are trying to build the game primarily for Everquest, FFXI and Vanguard players. You are not dealing with some new team of unknown. You are talking about one of the fathers of the 3d mmorpg genre here.
Kids these days...
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
Oh kickstarter. A place where the average Joe (Who has no clue about investing, potential, vision, etc), gets to throw their money at people who know how to exploit these people who have no clue. It is really hilarious watching these fail games get put up and the monkeys ready to throw them their banana's.
Granted, it is your money, you earned it so you can throw it where you want to. But don't complain to the rest of the country about being a part of the 99%. It's your own damn fault for being so stupid.
i know the feeling......I was tampted to "support" this project but then again today i see it only has 16 days left to get 800K funding and i can't seem to find ONE good gameplay movie of this game anywhere......i am not paying for something i can' t even see........the devs being like "its an awesome game just like the ones we had to leave BUT we need your money for it AGAIN".
No gameplay footage is no money....just NO!
Many Kickstarters are about funding ideas. McQuaid and co having over one hundred years experience amongst them are banking on the fact that people remember and have beloved memories of games like Everquest and the optimized version of Vanguard.
They are trying to build the game primarily for Everquest, FFXI and Vanguard players. You are not dealing with some new team of unknown. You are talking about one of the fathers of the 3d mmorpg genre here.
Kids these days...
Calling anyone a kid may deprive you of maturity in the eyes of the rest of the community. I'd advise against stating opinion as if it were fact.
Lets for the sake of argument assume this is true.
Despite how pissed i am at smed/soe for what they're doing to/with "EQ":N
Despite my general unhappiness with VG closing down (I didnt play it anymore, but there were lots that did and called it home).
Despite everything.
I would still give them my $100 pledge.
Why?
Because i would rather lose $100 on the offchance that i could get a game that comes ANYWHERE even *remotely* close to what i've been wanting out of an MMO for almost a decade now, than be stuck with Option A. play garbage like EQ:N/TESO/Wildstar/JustinBieberMMO#546, or B. Not have an MMO to play.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
At least with Camelot Unchained there was a real company behind it with an office and employees. If they KS didn't fund it would simply move on to other projects.
The 800k here is going towards starting a studio from the ground up then looking for a publisher - NOT - designing the game. If by some miracle he finds a publisher who wants to finance Vanguard 2.0 I guarantee they will want to WoW it up because that is how you maximize profits.
At least with Camelot Unchained there was a real company behind it with an office and employees. If they KS didn't fund it would simply move on to other projects.
The 800k here is going towards starting a studio from the ground up then looking for a publisher - NOT - designing the game. If by some miracle he finds a publisher who wants to finance Vanguard 2.0 I guarantee they will want to WoW it up because that is how you maximize profits.
That's one expensive office.. They will certainly be using the money on the game as well..
Brad is just a guy who wants to do what he's always wanted to do, and that's make games he wants to play.
Big company's like Sony know that the type of games that Brad likes to play are not what the majority of gamers want to play these days. So poor Brad is not able to do what he wants working for Sony.
Now Brads not known for his business sense, but he can't help but want to make the games he wants to play so he is going to do it anyway.
Brad knows that there's people out there that still do want to play the games he likes to play and hes optimistic that there will be enough to support it.
Now if the game is successful and there's more people that want to play old school mmo game mechanics then what the big game company's statistics show and he's offered a butt load of cash for his game I'm sure he will take it, wouldn't you?
Only 37% of startups in this industry make it passed 4 years. This is Brads second attempt. He say's he has learned a lot from his first try and thinks he can make it this time.
Comments
ya like what happened with
Pathfinder Online http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/1675907842/pathfinder-online-a-fantasy-sandbox-mmo/#chart-daily
Or
Camelot Unchained: http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained/#chart-daily
Were those sekret backed by publishers too?
While I admire your sense of speculation and doubt, I seriously doubt that SoE has anything to do with the project at this point. I'm not ruling out that would get involved later because that would be incredibly dumb of me to do however. Why wouldn't anyone want to get involved? Especially SoE. They know first hand what EQ did for them and if Brad is able to make a game to do it again they would be all over it. EQ is still one of the longest running MMOs with a pretty decent sub base that they are making money off of to this day.
I hope that this is able to be majority crowdfunded so that we (the players and devs) have more say so over what happens to it but realistically speaking they will need some type of investor to get the game completely funded and on the shelves. So here's hoping that it doesn't end up with a big name publisher that will kill everything that we want to see
Yes SOE bought Vanguard - it was a fire sale purchase; they took very little on board. Very few people and from memory no physical assets. SOE also bought MXO and did a deal with Flying Labs to publish PotBS. They are still trying to find the next EQ.
Yes Brad got a "position" but it is a jump to suggest that this is an SOE game via Brad via Kickstarter.
For me the bigger question is Brad's track record. Vanguard launched unfinished - the money ran out and there were tales of friends and relatives on the payroll and money squandered. Ordinarily that would be between the owners of the company and the people running the business. When the funding is Kickstarter its a key question. Hopefully those who opt to fund the project know the risks.
Judging by SOE's latest gaming direction i doubt it.
Unfortunate. Despite its technical issues and such (which were the main source of its problems), I think Vanguard offers up a very deep and expansive experience. Not only can you get a good idea of the kind of depth of gameplay Brad likes to achieve in his games, you can also get an appreciation of why they had so much trouble getting it out the door in a finished/polished state with the money they had to work with (a fraction of what some MMOs these days have). The game is simply massive, and I don't only mean in terms of land size.
i know the feeling......I was tampted to "support" this project but then again today i see it only has 16 days left to get 800K funding and i can't seem to find ONE good gameplay movie of this game anywhere......i am not paying for something i can' t even see........the devs being like "its an awesome game just like the ones we had to leave BUT we need your money for it AGAIN".
No gameplay footage is no money....just NO!
Many Kickstarters are about funding ideas. McQuaid and co having over one hundred years experience amongst them are banking on the fact that people remember and have beloved memories of games like Everquest and the optimized version of Vanguard.
They are trying to build the game primarily for Everquest, FFXI and Vanguard players. You are not dealing with some new team of unknown. You are talking about one of the fathers of the 3d mmorpg genre here.
Kids these days...
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
Calling anyone a kid may deprive you of maturity in the eyes of the rest of the community. I'd advise against stating opinion as if it were fact.
Lets for the sake of argument assume this is true.
Despite how pissed i am at smed/soe for what they're doing to/with "EQ":N
Despite my general unhappiness with VG closing down (I didnt play it anymore, but there were lots that did and called it home).
Despite everything.
I would still give them my $100 pledge.
Why?
Because i would rather lose $100 on the offchance that i could get a game that comes ANYWHERE even *remotely* close to what i've been wanting out of an MMO for almost a decade now, than be stuck with Option A. play garbage like EQ:N/TESO/Wildstar/JustinBieberMMO#546, or B. Not have an MMO to play.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
At least with Camelot Unchained there was a real company behind it with an office and employees. If they KS didn't fund it would simply move on to other projects.
The 800k here is going towards starting a studio from the ground up then looking for a publisher - NOT - designing the game. If by some miracle he finds a publisher who wants to finance Vanguard 2.0 I guarantee they will want to WoW it up because that is how you maximize profits.
That's one expensive office.. They will certainly be using the money on the game as well..
Nice theory here's mine.
Brad is just a guy who wants to do what he's always wanted to do, and that's make games he wants to play.
Big company's like Sony know that the type of games that Brad likes to play are not what the majority of gamers want to play these days. So poor Brad is not able to do what he wants working for Sony.
Now Brads not known for his business sense, but he can't help but want to make the games he wants to play so he is going to do it anyway.
Brad knows that there's people out there that still do want to play the games he likes to play and hes optimistic that there will be enough to support it.
Now if the game is successful and there's more people that want to play old school mmo game mechanics then what the big game company's statistics show and he's offered a butt load of cash for his game I'm sure he will take it, wouldn't you?
Only 37% of startups in this industry make it passed 4 years. This is Brads second attempt. He say's he has learned a lot from his first try and thinks he can make it this time.
The only way to be successful is to keep trying.
I wish him luck.