A Playable Game That Might Succeed Now if Released .....

Amathe

"We built the company up, and while doing so we’ve already created a playable MMO, one that might see some success were it released but it’s only the foundation of what we all want to ship.  It’s playable, we’ve already had four pre-alpha tests with hundreds running around the game.  The world is decently large enough for perhaps a couple, three weeks of average/normal play."

https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/blogs/151/188/much-to-do-about-pantheon-cco-update (section on "A little more about Visionary Realms")


This is a huge bit of news. Last I heard they were emphasizing pre-alpha status, and working on a project that would include and feature the various game systems. 

I am puzzled that Brad feels a game with perhaps two weeks of playable content would ever succeed (even if only in part) if released? 

There is also a way to back into evaluating where they are. Suppose you want to play the game for two years. Ok, we are presently 1 year, 11 months, and 1 week of playable content short of that. So, quite a ways to go it seems.

It also states:

"Of course, I won’t give a date – I am no longer allowing myself to ever give a date as to when something related to this game is supposed to be done.  That’s externally of course, player facing.  Inside VR, well, people know what they have to do and why it’s important to move forward the best we can without violating the Vision.  And making sure our visuals get closer and closer to any other AAA game. "

So they are shooting for AAA quality. Admirable, but time consuming and expensive. I guess this means my elven ranger won't wear a Christmas tree on his chest, like, um, before. 

This Dev Diary is chock full of interesting matters. Don't rely on me. Better to read it yourself and reflect. 

Utinni

Amathe said:

I am puzzled that Brad feels a game with perhaps two weeks of playable content would ever succeed (even if only in part) if released? 

He's talking about what they have done right now. He isn't saying that the final game has 2-3 weeks of content for casuals.

Amathe

Utinni said:

Amathe said:

I am puzzled that Brad feels a game with perhaps two weeks of playable content would ever succeed (even if only in part) if released? 

He's talking about what they have done right now. He isn't saying that the final game has 2-3 weeks of content for casuals.

I know he doesn't plan to release the game with 2-3 weeks of content. I know he means what they have done so far. (And he doesn't say what type of player would be occupied by  the 2-3 weeks of content they have now).  But that's not the point. The point is he is saying that they have a game that is sufficiently playable that theoretically it could be released now and have some success. You don't need to take my word for it. I quoted him and linked the source.

Amathe

DMKano said:

Utinni said:

And he is talking about casual play.

Hard core guilds can rip through content at more than 10x casual pace.

So 2-3 weeks for a hard core min/max guild is like 6 months of casual content. 

If there were raid level content, sure. But just questing and whacking stuff? I can kill kobolds and collect apples just as good as you.   

BazgrimTV

Utinni said:

Amathe said:

I am puzzled that Brad feels a game with perhaps two weeks of playable content would ever succeed (even if only in part) if released? 

He's talking about what they have done right now. He isn't saying that the final game has 2-3 weeks of content for casuals.

He said "one that might see some success if it were released." So it depends on if he means released today or released eventually. I read it as him saying he thinks it would see some success if it were released today. In which case, it would successful at first but not last very long. But regardless, of course, it's their goal is to make a game that is sustainable and healthy longterm.

This is not surprising to me personally, based on my experience playing the game at conventions and on stream. The game was fun and completely playable way back in 2017. The play test at PAX 2018 was more structured to give more people an opportunity to play, but at TwitchCon the year before, there were less people at the booth and I was pretty much given free roam of the whole game. But I realize that not everyone is fortunate enough to have that perspective. So I'm glad Brad is speaking about it more now. Suffice to say though that I can personally confirm what he's saying. As someone who has played the game not under NDA... It is a real MMO and it has been for quite a long time. Almost everything works smoothly, but yes the lack of quests and NPCs in some areas was evident - and to be expected. So from what I can tell, at this point, it's just a matter of filling out the massive world with content.

alkarionlog

and lets get real here devs are worse then politicians, they promise a solution for climate change and world famine, then after they get the money, they fail to provide even a demo.

so unless the game is out and can be tested, anything they write, promise, or say is useless, not worthy of trust or even notice

Amathe

As a complete digression, I am reassured that someone as tech savvy as Bazgrim also has trouble with this website's block quoting features. It's not just me.  

BazgrimTV

Amathe said:

As a complete digression, I am reassured that someone as tech savvy as Bazgrim also has trouble with this website's block quoting features. It's not just me.  

lol I feel like this is part of the reason why forums have largely fallen out of style on the internet. But I only have 18 posts on these forums, so what do I know :P

Mendel

Amathe said:

Utinni said:

Amathe said:

I am puzzled that Brad feels a game with perhaps two weeks of playable content would ever succeed (even if only in part) if released? 

He's talking about what they have done right now. He isn't saying that the final game has 2-3 weeks of content for casuals.

I know he doesn't plan to release the game with 2-3 weeks of content. I know he means what they have done so far. (And he doesn't say what type of player would be occupied by  the 2-3 weeks of content they have now).  But that's not the point. The point is he is saying that they have a game that is sufficiently playable that theoretically it could be released now and have some success. You don't need to take my word for it. I quoted him and linked the source.

I think this bit of information points to VR's definition of what might be successful to them.  This seems to imply that all the essential game systems are in place and ready to go, classes, combat, magic, and the like.  There doesn't appear to be much content yet.  Thus, we're seeing Project Faerthale, building a template to create the rest of the game world.  It's a reasonable thing to do.

There are several immediate questions this raises.

• Is Project Faerthale going to double the existing size of the content?  That would indicate that each time they put in another chunk of the world, it would add 2-3 weeks of playable content.  Maybe it adds more; maybe less; maybe there will be a lot of duplicate content (level-wise).  That's still a big unknown.
  

• How long will subsequent repetitions of the Project Faerthale Model (PFM) take to implement?  It's a given that the first time would take longer, but how quickly will VR be able to repeat this process?

• How much content (total) is VR expecting to have complete before they release the game?  If we measure this in weeks worth of content (WWC) and we know the duration time of each iteration of the PFM, then predicting an actual ballpark date for the initial release should be pretty simple -- how much content they want divided by the time it takes to create it.
  

• Is the PFM going to be the basis for any new expansions?  That would seem to be a reasonable approach, but would that be enough content to warrant a DLC/expansion price.  The cost-conscious gamer might not want to be forking over cash on top of normal costs to keep up with expansions.
  

To me, it would be business suicide to release and MMORPG without at least 50+ weeks of content ready to play.  That should give VR enough time to create additional content, which would drive their revenue (new content = money) and keep the players relatively satisfied.

The locusts will overrun anything they can/will produce.  Focusing almost exclusively on the bleeding-edge player is what I feel hurt EQ1, and why that game turned into a Guild-required, raiding game.  There is a point where advancement in EQ1 becomes impractical, which seems contrary to the rest of the game.  That's the point when a customer considers leaving.

Sovrath

Mendel said:

• 
  

To me, it would be business suicide to release and MMORPG without at least 50+ weeks of content ready to play.  That should give VR enough time to create additional content, which would drive their revenue (new content = money) and keep the players relatively satisfied.

The locusts will overrun anything they can/will produce.  Focusing almost exclusively on the bleeding-edge player is what I feel hurt EQ1, and why that game turned into a Guild-required, raiding game.  There is a point where advancement in EQ1 becomes impractical, which seems contrary to the rest of the game.  That's the point when a customer considers leaving.

Has there ever been an mmorpg that released wtih 50+ weeks of content? That's a year (yes, minus 2 weeks).

delete5230

This is good news !
Thanks @Amathe

rounner

Thinking back, I'm not sure many MMORPG's released with much end game content. Replayability for altoholics is another matter. Two or three different starting areas with serious content before they are merged is nice. Will Pantheon keep different factions apart for a long time like VG, or will there just be a 10 levels of intro then all together type design?

boris20

Sovrath said:

Mendel said:

• 
  

To me, it would be business suicide to release and MMORPG without at least 50+ weeks of content ready to play.  That should give VR enough time to create additional content, which would drive their revenue (new content = money) and keep the players relatively satisfied.

The locusts will overrun anything they can/will produce.  Focusing almost exclusively on the bleeding-edge player is what I feel hurt EQ1, and why that game turned into a Guild-required, raiding game.  There is a point where advancement in EQ1 becomes impractical, which seems contrary to the rest of the game.  That's the point when a customer considers leaving.

Has there ever been an mmorpg that released wtih 50+ weeks of content? That's a year (yes, minus 2 weeks).

I was scratching my head at that 50+ weeks comment myself. 

Amathe

Sovrath said:

Has there ever been an mmorpg that released wtih 50+ weeks of content? That's a year (yes, minus 2 weeks).

That's hard to measure. It depends on so many things. As an example, EQ had a quest about Protection of the Cabbage.  It was not initially easy to figure out. So much so that they named part of the quest after the first player to complete it. If you were one of the players trying to solve it, you could have spent many weeks on just that.

Or you could have stood against a zone wall and whacked stuff.

Or maybe you raced to max and did progression raiding.

It depends on what you spend your time doing.

Mendel

Sovrath said:

Mendel said:

• 
  

To me, it would be business suicide to release and MMORPG without at least 50+ weeks of content ready to play.  That should give VR enough time to create additional content, which would drive their revenue (new content = money) and keep the players relatively satisfied.

The locusts will overrun anything they can/will produce.  Focusing almost exclusively on the bleeding-edge player is what I feel hurt EQ1, and why that game turned into a Guild-required, raiding game.  There is a point where advancement in EQ1 becomes impractical, which seems contrary to the rest of the game.  That's the point when a customer considers leaving.

Has there ever been an mmorpg that released wtih 50+ weeks of content? That's a year (yes, minus 2 weeks).

EQ1 and SWTOR appeared to have about 50 weeks worth of content for the average 2 hour-a-day player.  WoW may have been very close, 45 weeks.  DAoC was definitely short of this, probably 30 weeks for the PvE content.  AC, I'm not real sure -- I was in game at the start but dropped after a month.  All these are my estimates of how much was there at the start.  Games not listed, I wasn't there at the start.  Some games (Ryzom, EQ2, others) changed pretty radically early in their life.

For the record, I'd consider most of the MMORPG readership to be above average in play time.  We aren't the average target player.

Kyleran

BazgrimTV said:

Amathe said:

As a complete digression, I am reassured that someone as tech savvy as Bazgrim also has trouble with this website's block quoting features. It's not just me.  

lol I feel like this is part of the reason why forums have largely fallen out of style on the internet. But I only have 18 posts on these forums, so what do I know :P

Hey,  I've only got 18 posts....

Oh I thought we were talking about just today.

Kyleran

Sovrath said:

Mendel said:

• 
  

To me, it would be business suicide to release and MMORPG without at least 50+ weeks of content ready to play.  That should give VR enough time to create additional content, which would drive their revenue (new content = money) and keep the players relatively satisfied.

The locusts will overrun anything they can/will produce.  Focusing almost exclusively on the bleeding-edge player is what I feel hurt EQ1, and why that game turned into a Guild-required, raiding game.  There is a point where advancement in EQ1 becomes impractical, which seems contrary to the rest of the game.  That's the point when a customer considers leaving.

Has there ever been an mmorpg that released wtih 50+ weeks of content? That's a year (yes, minus 2 weeks).

Lineage 2's NA release clearly had all that and more at launch, unless of course one was a 10 plus hour a day no lifer.

Mylan12

Mendel said:

Amathe said:

Utinni said:

Amathe said:

I am puzzled that Brad feels a game with perhaps two weeks of playable content would ever succeed (even if only in part) if released? 

He's talking about what they have done right now. He isn't saying that the final game has 2-3 weeks of content for casuals.

I know he doesn't plan to release the game with 2-3 weeks of content. I know he means what they have done so far. (And he doesn't say what type of player would be occupied by  the 2-3 weeks of content they have now).  But that's not the point. The point is he is saying that they have a game that is sufficiently playable that theoretically it could be released now and have some success. You don't need to take my word for it. I quoted him and linked the source.

I think this bit of information points to VR's definition of what might be successful to them.  This seems to imply that all the essential game systems are in place and ready to go, classes, combat, magic, and the like.  There doesn't appear to be much content yet.  Thus, we're seeing Project Faerthale, building a template to create the rest of the game world.  It's a reasonable thing to do.

There are several immediate questions this raises.

• Is Project Faerthale going to double the existing size of the content?  That would indicate that each time they put in another chunk of the world, it would add 2-3 weeks of playable content.  Maybe it adds more; maybe less; maybe there will be a lot of duplicate content (level-wise).  That's still a big unknown.
  

• How long will subsequent repetitions of the Project Faerthale Model (PFM) take to implement?  It's a given that the first time would take longer, but how quickly will VR be able to repeat this process?

• How much content (total) is VR expecting to have complete before they release the game?  If we measure this in weeks worth of content (WWC) and we know the duration time of each iteration of the PFM, then predicting an actual ballpark date for the initial release should be pretty simple -- how much content they want divided by the time it takes to create it.
  

• Is the PFM going to be the basis for any new expansions?  That would seem to be a reasonable approach, but would that be enough content to warrant a DLC/expansion price.  The cost-conscious gamer might not want to be forking over cash on top of normal costs to keep up with expansions.
  

To me, it would be business suicide to release and MMORPG without at least 50+ weeks of content ready to play.  That should give VR enough time to create additional content, which would drive their revenue (new content = money) and keep the players relatively satisfied.

The locusts will overrun anything they can/will produce.  Focusing almost exclusively on the bleeding-edge player is what I feel hurt EQ1, and why that game turned into a Guild-required, raiding game.  There is a point where advancement in EQ1 becomes impractical, which seems contrary to the rest of the game.  That's the point when a customer considers leaving.

 When people say something like 50 weeks of content, they should define what they mean.  I am sure you don't mean actually 50 weeks of content which is something like 8,400 hours.

Do you mean something like someone that averages X amount of hours a week play per week should have 50 weeks of play? What is X (14 hours, 21 hours or what) ?

 Also do you mean actually content or the time it takes someone to reach max level playing X hours a week? A common problem in MMORPG is outleveling the content. Does content you miss while leveling count? It is in game but you just didn't do it?

As far as guilds go, I am sure like EQ  you needed a good guild to experience all or even most of the content of the game. I only played EQ till the 2nd expansion (SoV) and I agree they leaned too much toward raid content after that and less toward group content. I think this was about the time Brad left the EQ dev team.

TEKK3N

He is saying that the mechanics and systems are all in place.
They only need to create the content.

World building is faster once you have everything you need in place.
We are talking about another couple of years of course.

But compared to other games in development Pantheon is in a much better place.

Wizardry

If what you say is true and what i have seen mmorpg's calling content,that wouldn't take very long at all.
These rpg's just reskin the same model over and over to make you think there are a pile of different mobs/npc's.Then what ALL of them are doing is really lazy work,attach a marker to these npc's,attach a quest and the rest is RAIDS,dungeon instances.Those two ideals are to me so lame for 2019,i can't even bother to play something like that for free.

Is there a god given hope that this game will be any different than the hundred predecessors all copying Wow,i have a gut feeling NO,content will be same old.If there are lazy type quests,at least have people explore and think to solve them,don't give any of those go to said instance and kill Boss,go kill 10 bears just because you'll get some xp or loot,i want more depth than that.

blamo2000

My worry about this, going off of EQ base and Vanguard, is the very, very lite character development options in this guy's games.  He promised one for Vanguard, but it isn't something you can tack on.  It has to be a core system that can be built off of with expansions - not something you tack on as an after thought, but never do because the game fails because it doesn't attract people that see it as a basic and core necessity.

I skimmed through some videos and read some info, and it has some gimmicky stuff like environmental resistance things you build up - but I can't find any information on a solid character development system and the choices players will have to build characters.  

Abhorer

We must wait to allow them to create world content at their pace; it would be better for the game and as the previous poster have said, allow an in depth character development system, which could be vital for the game, given its contenders in the market. 


I don't know if they need 50 weeks of content to release, even though it seems advisable. They are taking the graphics to an AAA level, which is another good mood, and this is one of the good things of many they are doing well. If this is the 2020 version of EQ2 I will be happy.

delete5230

Mylan12 said:

Mendel said:

Amathe said:

Utinni said:

Amathe said:

I am puzzled that Brad feels a game with perhaps two weeks of playable content would ever succeed (even if only in part) if released? 

He's talking about what they have done right now. He isn't saying that the final game has 2-3 weeks of content for casuals.

I know he doesn't plan to release the game with 2-3 weeks of content. I know he means what they have done so far. (And he doesn't say what type of player would be occupied by  the 2-3 weeks of content they have now).  But that's not the point. The point is he is saying that they have a game that is sufficiently playable that theoretically it could be released now and have some success. You don't need to take my word for it. I quoted him and linked the source.

I think this bit of information points to VR's definition of what might be successful to them.  This seems to imply that all the essential game systems are in place and ready to go, classes, combat, magic, and the like.  There doesn't appear to be much content yet.  Thus, we're seeing Project Faerthale, building a template to create the rest of the game world.  It's a reasonable thing to do.

There are several immediate questions this raises.

• Is Project Faerthale going to double the existing size of the content?  That would indicate that each time they put in another chunk of the world, it would add 2-3 weeks of playable content.  Maybe it adds more; maybe less; maybe there will be a lot of duplicate content (level-wise).  That's still a big unknown.
  

• How long will subsequent repetitions of the Project Faerthale Model (PFM) take to implement?  It's a given that the first time would take longer, but how quickly will VR be able to repeat this process?

• How much content (total) is VR expecting to have complete before they release the game?  If we measure this in weeks worth of content (WWC) and we know the duration time of each iteration of the PFM, then predicting an actual ballpark date for the initial release should be pretty simple -- how much content they want divided by the time it takes to create it.
  

• Is the PFM going to be the basis for any new expansions?  That would seem to be a reasonable approach, but would that be enough content to warrant a DLC/expansion price.  The cost-conscious gamer might not want to be forking over cash on top of normal costs to keep up with expansions.
  

To me, it would be business suicide to release and MMORPG without at least 50+ weeks of content ready to play.  That should give VR enough time to create additional content, which would drive their revenue (new content = money) and keep the players relatively satisfied.

The locusts will overrun anything they can/will produce.  Focusing almost exclusively on the bleeding-edge player is what I feel hurt EQ1, and why that game turned into a Guild-required, raiding game.  There is a point where advancement in EQ1 becomes impractical, which seems contrary to the rest of the game.  That's the point when a customer considers leaving.

 When people say something like 50 weeks of content, they should define what they mean.  I am sure you don't mean actually 50 weeks of content which is something like 8,400 hours.

Do you mean something like someone that averages X amount of hours a week play per week should have 50 weeks of play? What is X (14 hours, 21 hours or what) ?

 Also do you mean actually content or the time it takes someone to reach max level playing X hours a week? A common problem in MMORPG is outleveling the content. Does content you miss while leveling count? It is in game but you just didn't do it?

As far as guilds go, I am sure like EQ  you needed a good guild to experience all or even most of the content of the game. I only played EQ till the 2nd expansion (SoV) and I agree they leaned too much toward raid content after that and less toward group content. I think this was about the time Brad left the EQ dev team.

Define a week ?... Theirs no standard officially documented. 

However in second generation mmoprgs their is, but no one ever attached numbers to this timely event. Let me explain: 

I'm not a great player but I do have a talent of using the "social panels" in all mmo's.  I have a hobby of studding server populations every time I log in, and every game.  I've been doing this for years.

I spend time on how many classes and levels are logged on at different times of day.  I take note of players and how much they advance.  I put a bracket around a group of people close to my level and watch the entire group advance several levels.... And in every case they move equally in time a few levels. I know who's power leveling, honestly it's not that many.

I've kept pace with brackets of players, and in EVERY CASE we maintain equal for weeks on end. 

It's a standard, at least in second generation mmorpg's of which I play, It maybe the same for first and third gen also, I don't play them often.

I'll list three games and say an "equal standard" can be determined, but many more are the same:
-Everquest 2
-World of Warcraft
-Vanguard

I never actually charted on paper leveling speed, as it's never been an important, it's more a simple mental notation, but here would be my guess at a standard.

1-10     1 or 2 or 3 days (This is often the rush levels)
11-20   5 days 
21-30   8 days
31->>  1 day each, slightly slower as levels increase.  

3-4 months from on average for a standard player that has knowledge of the content.  That's without doing the official math.  

Kyleran

What a playable game which might succeed on its own means to me is Brad learned his lesson from Vanguard.

Should the funding unexpectedly come to a halt for some reason (which he's well familiar with) he's in a position to ship what they have built to date, say as an early access title and shipping additional content post launch.

Actually a good strategy for a developer to take.  I'm guessing most of the other indie MMORPGs in development would be in a really bad state, largely unplayable if suddenly forced to launch in the near future because the funding well ran dry.

My assessment of him just went up a few notches if this is really true and not just blah speak.

delete5230

Kyleran said:

What a playable game which might succeed on its own means to me is Brad learned his lesson from Vanguard.

Should the funding unexpectedly come to a halt for some reason (which he's well familiar with) he's in a position to ship what they have built to date, say as an early access title and shipping additional content post launch.

Actually a good strategy for a developer to take.  I'm guessing most of the other indie MMORPGs in development would be in a really bad state, largely unplayable if suddenly forced to launch in the near future because the funding well ran dry.

My assessment of him just went up a few notches if this is really true and not just blah speak.

Honestly I can't follow this post other than the first line, read it 3 times.  It helps me understand my own short comings.

Anyway,
I think Visionary Realms should make a total effort to complete the game entirely before release...... Broken half done games are always the trademark of this industry.

They have to be a rare exception !

Spiider

I call "fake news". An mmo with 2-3 weeks of playable content is not an mmo. What is this, another theme park a la star wars? Not what what promised.