Regardless, this quote(likely entire post) is telling:
Aradune said:
We will indeed stick to our guns and have no desire or willingness or plans to cave into anyone, including the masses.
Guaranteed recipe for failed business right there.
Who cares about players(customers), we make the game for our own self-amusement...
Not even close to what I said. Our customers, our target audience, is what this is all about -- it's about making a game for *them*. It's about being ok if someone else says, hey, I won't play Pantheon unless you change x, y, and z. That's what we will not cave in to. That is where we'll stick to our guns. We are absolutely committed to making the best game possible for our audience and I would encourage other developers to adopt a similar stand -- spending ludicrous amounts of money trying to appeal to everyone and be the next 'WoW-killer' hasn't worked, period. So let's stop and get back to focusing on making our audience happy, not everyone.
Post edited by Aradune on
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-------------------------------------------------------------- Brad McQuaid CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc. www.pantheonmmo.com --------------------------------------------------------------
3. LEVEL SYSTEM While Brad has mentioned other things will matter in the progression of one's character in the game. WHY do we need another game with LEVELS. Can't we get a completely SKILL focused game design? Put ranks on the Skills if you must, but to me, developing your character's skills and ranks in those skills should determine one's character's progression and even eligibility to getting items, new spells, etc etc. NOT your character's LEVEL... I would like to see the level system abolished.
The level system is to cater to the EQ nostalgia. Leveling must be long and tedious, too. It wouldn't be a "EQ successor" if it didn't have a class/level/grind based gameplay.
You can only hope someone, someday, makes a really worthy successor to UO, which has the system you described since 1996.
Except I've said time and time again that we are not making an EQ clone and not simply taking every aspect of the earlier MMOs and replicating them. In particular I've posted numerous times that needless, repetitive grinding is not part of the plan.
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-------------------------------------------------------------- Brad McQuaid CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc. www.pantheonmmo.com --------------------------------------------------------------
Except I've said time and time again that we are not making an EQ clone and not simply taking every aspect of the earlier MMOs and replicating them. In particular I've posted numerous times that needless, repetitive grinding is not part of the plan.
Brad, I am glad to read this.
I have been following Pantheon since KS and from time to time stop into the Pantheon forums. I have to say some (okay a lot) of the ideas being thrown out by the community there scare me. A lot of the ideas just appear to be EQ mechanics on steroids, the harsher the better.
I loved EQ and I want another EQ like game but with a more modern take on somethings. Pantheon is looking to be that and I hope it ends up that way at release.
Ya, lead design on the mmorpg that popularized and shaped the genre. 'Nuff said indeed.
It was 4 guys for EQ, and of course some Brad fans conveniently forget that fact.
The concept was from John Smedley, and design is from Brad McQuaid, but also Steve Clover and Bill Trost. And its the synergy of those 3 people which made it work. Another thing that made it work is that EQ was the only one of its kind (class/level/grind/endgame) back then. As soon as concurrence appeared, EQ numbers started to tank. Nowadays, Braid won't have the chance to be the only sheriff in town.
Brad failed everything else he made. Without the two others to balance him, it was one bad decision after the other, decent ideas very badly implemented, tedious gameplay and poor technical implementation.
The guy proved that he was completely unable to complete a MMORPG project on his own. You can only hope that in Pantheon, he has decent coworkers who have a say in what the game should be, or it will be the Vanguard story happening again.
So sorry, I will have faith in something Brad made when I've played it and it proves to be good. Not on promises and marketing.
You seem adept at conveniently leaving out facts and then twisting those you do try to include. Are you trolling on purpose or do you really not know this stuff?
First, it was about 23 of us who made EQ and everyone played an important role. Yes, it was Smed's original desire to make an online RPG and his ability to get it funded that pretty much started the whole thing -- without him, there would be no EQ..
I was Producer on the project (in charge of development, design, planning -- pretty much everything was my responsibility whether I was working on it or someone who reported to me was working on it). Ultimately however it was my responsibility to get it finished and out the door. Smed kept the funding going and I kept the project going. I did this, kept to the schedule, and delivered what would become the most profitable venture Sony was ever involved with on time.
Steve Clover is one of my oldest and dearest friends. He worked with me on some smaller projects before EQ. Steve and I were both hired to work on EQ on 3/3/96 and were the first two members of the EQ team. He became the lead programmer. He also helped me with the design, and both of us worked on lore, story, and setting until Bill Trost and others came along. From a design standpoint I would say he had the most influence after me.
Bill Trost I was able to hire a few months later. He had also helped me on a previous project (WarWizard 2). When he came on board Steve and I handed the world, the setting, the story and lore to him. He came up with the gods, many of the storylines, key figures, etc. He later had help, but I would credit him ultimately with the lore. From a systems standpoint he did come up with the Faction system that was seen in so many MMOs after EQ -- we were going to go with a simple alignment system ala D&D and MUDs, but then he proposed the faction system and we all fell in love with it.
EQ was hardly the 'only' game in town. This is another bit of misinformation that rears its head periodically. Before EQ you had M59 and UO. UO when we launched had several hundred thousand subscribers. Soon after came games like AO and DAoC. These were all fine games even though EQ surpassed them in subscribers and peaked at approx. 550k paying subs. To say that there was no competition is basically saying these other games were crap, an assertion not only inaccurate but also offensive to those who worked on them.
EQ hit it's peak around the time the second expansion came out and around the same time I left. I was also Producer/Executive Producer on Kunark and Velious.
EQ wasn't dethroned until several years after its release and it was Final Fantasy that did it. Despite this, EQ lost very few subs -- what was happening and what continued to happen for many years is that the gamespace was growing. The number of people (and the types of people) interested in online games began to grow like crazy. It was a long time before an MMO would come out and you could see numbers drop in other MMOs, and this goes all the way back. For example, while EQ surpassed UO in subs, UO's subs barely dropped at all. Why? Again, the gamespace was growing.
So, NO, as soon as 'concurrence' began EQ's number did NOT begin to tank. What finally led to EQ's numbers going down was primarily the age of the game. At some point, people want a new game with new graphics, etc. Look at WoW -- WoW has lost millions of players -- is that because of some other MMO out there successfully competing with it? Did the mythical WoW-killer get launched while I was asleep and I somehow missed it? Certainly not. The game is getting old and people are slowly but surely leaving it. Btw, EQ is still running and is 17 years old -- rumor has it there are still around 50k subs. Vanguard, despite all of its issues, was live for 7 years. How many other MMOs can boast this?
'Brad failed everything else he made'. Well, other than EQ and it's first two expansions the only other MMO I've worked on was Vanguard. It did fail from a financial standpoint, although those who stuck around or returned to it have pretty much only positive things to say about the design, gameplay, etc. So I've had one major success and one major failure. This does not translate into 'everything else he made'. If you are curious about what happened with VG, dig around and read up on it. Try to get to the facts and not get mired down by upset people spinning the truth or, worse yet, some misinformation from a disgruntled former employee.
Without the two others to balance him it was one bad decision followed by another? Interesting theory. Fact is, however, that Steve Clover left SoE to come work with me on Vanguard. I guess you missed that pesky fact too? In fact, not long after Vanguard was in development there were more people who had worked on EQ working on Vanguard than who were still working on EQ (or EQ 2, for that matter).
And I've never worked on an MMO 'on my own' -- I've always surrounded myself with amazing people, without whom EQ and VG would have been shallow shells of games instead of what they turned into. And I can proudly say that the Pantheon team is the finest I've ever worked with. What we've accomplished with so little is simply unprecedented. I am lucky to be able to take not only my success and good decisions and put them to use, but I've also learned from my mistakes and one of my jobs is to keep us from repeating them.
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-------------------------------------------------------------- Brad McQuaid CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc. www.pantheonmmo.com --------------------------------------------------------------
Hope you're not referring me playing WoW, coming here talking about EQ grind. But, by the way, there was grind in EQ.
Regarding maps. Well. OK. Interesting they won't have any maps. My system would allow for it, but make it quite game-play involved and uncovering areas of the map, their level of details and retention wouldn't be simply.
Loading screens. It's just a poor design in my opinion, especially now-a-days, and not appreciated. So I disagree, and I would never make a game with loading screens.
Regarding leveling. I don't think it's a mandatory aspect of an MMO. I think there are other ways. Focusing on skills is the better way to go I think.
Wasn't directed at you. Yes, EQ had grind but it was still far more varied than the grind of most games, particularly one like BDO. You had a plethora of different worthwhile content to engage in. You could directly trade something you got in one place for something you couldn't camp yourself. You could go back and hunt rares that dropped highly valuable items in low level zones. It had content from solo, to group, to small raid, to enormous raid and quests for the same.
There are a lot of ways to make the grind more fun today, but ultimately there will always be grind in a game based around progression if your achievements are to have any meaning. Its a simulation of work. It should be fun, it shouldn't be entirely static or predictable, but it will exist in some form or another.
I admit, I am a little disappointed with zones and hope they find a way to preload an area before you enter it to avoid loading screens. Still, its way down on the list of important things for me.
Like I said, even if you have skill levels but no character level, its the same thing. It serves the same purpose and in a game with more rigidly designed content, it will only make assessing your power and that of your groupmates more problematic - and for no real good reason, imo.
Aradune said: Not even close to what I said. Our customers, our target audience, is what this is all about -- it's about making a game for *them*. It's about being ok if someone else says, hey, I don't play Pantheon unless you change x, y, and z. That's what we will not cave in to. That is where we'll stick to our guns. We are absolutely committed to making the best game possible for our audience and I would encourage other developers to adopt a similar stand -- spending ludicrous amounts of money trying to appeal to everyone and be the next 'WoW-killer' hasn't worked, period. So let's stop and get back to focusing on making our audience happy, not everyone.
I am wondering who you are talking about.
Who is supposedly trying to be a "WOW killer"? Who is supposedly trying to please everyone? For whom it hasn't worked? Who is supposedly not trying their audience happy?
All the most successfull MMOs are indeed so called "WoW-clones", so I fail to see where you are coming from.
The reason for large budgets is simply what it takes to release competitive product - in terms of quality and content. There is no way around that, that has nothing to do with trying to be a "WoW-killer".
It is simple principle of market competition(along with advancing technology) that drives production costs up.
You may try and go for more, scaled-down design to lower the overall cost while keeping the quality but that does not seem a path you are pursuing, you are trying to make a fully fledged MMO without necessary funding.
I do not wish you any ill, far from it, I just cannot imagine how do you see this as feasible endeavor without sacrificing quality considerably and thinking that people will play the game just because of game mechanics, ignoring high standards established by large budget titles they are used to.
So given that, I do not think it is all that afar from what you said...despite probably you didn't mean it that way.
Aradune said: Not even close to what I said. Our customers, our target audience, is what this is all about -- it's about making a game for *them*. It's about being ok if someone else says, hey, I don't play Pantheon unless you change x, y, and z. That's what we will not cave in to. That is where we'll stick to our guns. We are absolutely committed to making the best game possible for our audience and I would encourage other developers to adopt a similar stand -- spending ludicrous amounts of money trying to appeal to everyone and be the next 'WoW-killer' hasn't worked, period. So let's stop and get back to focusing on making our audience happy, not everyone.
I am wondering who you are talking about.
Who is supposedly trying to be a "WOW killer"? Who is supposedly trying to please everyone? For whom it hasn't worked? Who is supposedly not trying their audience happy?
All the most successfull MMOs are indeed so called "WoW-clones", so I fail to see where you are coming from.
The reason for large budgets is simply what it takes to release competitive product - in terms of quality and content. There is no way around that, that has nothing to do with trying to be a "WoW-killer".
It is simple principle of market competition(along with advancing technology) that drives production costs up.
You may try and go for more, scaled-down design to lower the overall cost while keeping the quality but that does not seem a path you are pursuing, you are trying to make a fully fledged MMO without necessary funding.
I do not wish you any ill, far from it, I just cannot imagine how do you see this as feasible endeavor without sacrificing quality considerably and thinking that people will play the game just because of game mechanics, ignoring high standards established by large budget titles they are used to.
So given that, I do not think it is all that afar from what you said...despite probably you didn't mean it that way.
All your concerned with is trying to be a Super Star
You can be niche and also be very happy and successful.
I'm a small niche company with 32 employees I do less than $10,000,000 a year in sales, manage to pay my employees a living wage $16-$36 per hour with full benefits and still manage to give myself a high end 6 figure salary.
You seem to have a very jaded view of what is or can be a success.
Btw, EQ is still running and is 17 years old -- rumor has it there are still around 50k subs. Vanguard, despite all of its issues, was live for 7 years. How many other MMOs can boast this?
Vanguard. It did fail from a financial standpoint, although those who stuck around or returned to it have pretty much only positive things to say about the design, gameplay, etc.
From my opinion and observation:
EQ
EQ was great up until PoP expansion. While this expansion brought in some interesting content and raiding, it also brought in the portal stones, to port to just about any zone. Killing the original idea of 'working together' with having certain classes being useful for certain things. In this particular case, Druids and Wizards for transportation. Perhaps SOE was getting desperate to try to keep subs, and they thought that travel times to zones were driving away players? Anyways, I hated it, especially being a Wizard, and seeing one of the main usefulness of my class become obsolete struck a sore chord..
Vanguard....
I was there from Beta. I stayed about 4 years. post release. I finally gave up on the game for a few reasons, here are some.. 1.) The content they were releasing, which wasn't a terrible amount, had a lot of grind in it. 2.) The game did not get the attention I thought it needed to become more successful than it could have. 3.) Perhaps Silius's hands were tied in ways we couldn't see, but I didn't agree with how he handled things with the game and the community.
What killed Vanguard, was it was released too early with too many bugs, and was very unplayable on most people's PCs. Chunk-line hitching and especially CTDs(Crash to Desktops) happened very often. It was one of the things that killed the game. That stuff wasn't sorted until basically 6-9 months after release. By then, pretty much too late. First impressions count, and I think there's only so many hard cord EQ gamers around to stick with Vanguard.
Vanguard only stayed around because of SOE keeping the lights on. SOE 'eventually' got the game playing stable and cleaned up a few things. But I don't think SOE did enough. From what I recall, SMED chose to pump money into his 'Free Realms' project.. Which funnily enough, closed down a few months before they closed Vanguard. Vanguard was treated like the unwanted stepchild by SOE. It wasn't given a chance to really shine.
WoW crushed both EQ but also EQ2 because it did better, without the flaws, without the forced grouping and other tedious mechanics the EQ games were ridden of, and that's why big EQ guilds migrated in masses to that game... until then, players who liked that style had little choice.
I played EQ, I played VG, and I also see some steps BACK compared to Vanguard in Pantheon, like the return of zoning when VG was a wide open seamless world. But that's an engine restriction. Still annoying in the year 2016, I think.
For the second part, we'll see soon enough I guess. If you manage to make such a game without the flaws of both EQ and Vanguard, and still while only sticking to your design decisions and not caring about what the public thinks, and the game is good and successful, I will the first to post my congratulations. And buy it, and play it. But sorry if I'm not your average fan who just buys based on the hype, sorry for having healthy doubts until proved wrong.
Good luck.
EQ was old and the population tapering off prior to WoW. They enjoyed spikes following expansions, but the game had fundamentally changed by 2005 as anyone who actually played it is aware of. It simply didn't have the staying power at that point for many of the reasons new mmos can't keep a solid playerbase.
No need to defend your EQ experience, when you've openly claimed you played UO and AC instead of EQ many times on these forums. Your second hand wikipedia level of knowledge and understanding of EQ is painfully obvious to those who actually played it, so spare us.
And enough with the goading already. The game Visionary Realms is making IS the game the public wants - at least the segment that wants an actual massively multiplayer virtual world rather than another fantasy lobby game. Pretending Brad is ignoring our wishes is just dishonest.
EQ was great up until PoP expansion. While this expansion brought in some interesting content and raiding, it also brought in the portal stones, to port to just about any zone. Killing the original idea of 'working together' with having certain classes being useful for certain things. In this particular case, Druids and Wizards for transportation. Perhaps SOE was getting desperate to try to keep subs, and they thought that travel times to zones were driving away players? Anyways, I hated it, especially being a Wizard, and seeing one of the main usefulness of my class become obsolete struck a sore chord..
Vanguard....
I was there from Beta. I stayed about 4 years. post release. I finally gave up on the game for a few reasons, here are some.. 1.) The content they were releasing, which wasn't a terrible amount, had a lot of grind in it. 2.) The game did not get the attention I thought it needed to become more successful than it could have. 3.) Perhaps Silius's hands were tied in ways we couldn't see, but I didn't agree with how he handled things with the game and the community.
What killed Vanguard, was it was released too early with too many bugs, and was very unplayable on most people's PCs. Chunk-line hitching and especially CTDs(Crash to Desktops) happened very often. It was one of the things that killed the game. That stuff wasn't sorted until basically 6-9 months after release. By then, pretty much too late. First impressions count, and I think there's only so many hard cord EQ gamers around to stick with Vanguard.
Vanguard only stayed around because of SOE keeping the lights on. SOE 'eventually' got the game playing stable and cleaned up a few things. But I don't think SOE did enough. From what I recall, SMED chose to pump money into his 'Free Realms' project.. Which funnily enough, closed down a few months before they closed Vanguard. Vanguard was treated like the unwanted stepchild by SOE. It wasn't given a chance to really shine.
Actually I agree generally with a lot of what you just said, and really can't go any deeper than that because of agreements and respect for people I have worked with, etc.
I
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-------------------------------------------------------------- Brad McQuaid CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc. www.pantheonmmo.com --------------------------------------------------------------
laserit said: All your concerned with is trying to be a Super Star
Am I? I am not the one throwing "WoW-killers" around...
I do realize though where Pantheon is heading. MMORPG market, the traditional MMORPG tiles like Pantheon is trying to be, is very small, very crowded and very competitive.
There is rather very simple way how to demonstrate my point: What games on the market currently make at least as much money as Pantheon needs(+5M a year?)..?
Pantheon needs revenue that is incredible difficult to achieve for small teams because you will be already competing with top quality titles on that level.
Just look at likely the only successful niche title that could be somewhat compared to what Pantheon is trying to do here - EVE Online. The game came out with top notch graphics and polish, it was very high quality product that was developed after release at unprecedented speed. And it was still very hard for them to make it, that was "back then" and they were truly "niche" unlike Pantheon.
So yeah, I do not see them achieving required quality for the size of player base they are aiming at.
And I even think McQuaid is painfully aware of it as their development progress and they are trying to polish the game...because that is actually the hardest part about it.
Brad How has your experience working with Unity been for an MMO like Pantheon? Have you considered moving the game to another engine at some point or are you guys happy with Unity?
Very happy with Unity and how efficient we can be with it, and how we don't have to spend much time coding things that aren't directly related to gameplay.
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-------------------------------------------------------------- Brad McQuaid CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc. www.pantheonmmo.com --------------------------------------------------------------
laserit said: All your concerned with is trying to be a Super Star
Am I? I am not the one throwing "WoW-killers" around...
I do realize though where Pantheon is heading. MMORPG market, the traditional MMORPG tiles like Pantheon is trying to be, is very small, very crowded and very competitive.
There is rather very simple way how to demonstrate my point: What games on the market currently make at least as much money as Pantheon needs(+5M a year?)..?
Pantheon needs revenue that is incredible difficult to achieve for small teams because you will be already competing with top quality titles on that level.
Just look at likely the only successful niche title that could be somewhat compared to what Pantheon is trying to do here - EVE Online. The game came out with top notch graphics and polish, it was very high quality product that was developed after release at unprecedented speed. And it was still very hard for them to make it, that was "back then" and they were truly "niche" unlike Pantheon.
So yeah, I do not see them achieving required quality for the size of player base they are aiming at.
And I even think McQuaid is painfully aware of it as their development progress and they are trying to polish the game...because that is actually the hardest part about it.
The people making the game seem to have realistic expectations. Pantheon is attempting to satisfy a neglected market. They need 30k subscribers to achieve your +5M a year, I think that's achievable. I think 100k subscribers is very achievable.
A spit in the bucket if you're trying to please a bunch of shareholders.
More than enough to keep a small dev team doing what they love to do and living a very comfortable life for themselves and their families.
I believe the people working on this game, know a lot more about the business than you or I do.
The people making the game seem to have realistic expectations. Pantheon is attempting to satisfy a neglected market. They need 30k subscribers to achieve your +5M a year, I think that's achievable. I think 100k subscribers is very achievable.
The people making the game seem to have realistic expectations. Pantheon is attempting to satisfy a neglected market. They need 30k subscribers to achieve your +5M a year, I think that's achievable. I think 100k subscribers is very achievable.
laserit said: "I think" and "seem" implies speculation.
Having a basis implies speculation. Having none implies unsubstantial belief.
Simple Definition of speculation
: ideas or guesses about something that is not known
: activity in which someone buys and sells things (such as stocks or pieces of property) in the hope of making a large profit but with the risk of a large loss
The answer given to the "abilities" question ONLY eluded to the aspect i hate.That is roaming through some dungeon to get to some Boss.
It comes down to two types of games,linear questing or killing mobs and for me,i want CHOICE to kill mobs because we already have far too many linear questing games flooding the market.
So on that note,i want a CLASS system ,similar to FFXI.If you want a certain set of abilities then go home and switch to that class and sub class.The problem from my viewpoint is no game will ever match the Ninja type tank but of course we will see often times a Paladin or melee type tank.
Now if the have or will implement say for example Piercing damage,then my tank needs to utilize armor that limits piercing damage,i am good with that but i do NOT want to have to switch some FAKE class to attain a different set of abilities after every single fight,that would be nonsense.
I want to grab say a Warrior and know i am fighting Blunt type mobs for an hour or two,so myself and the group come equipped accordingly.if we decide to change camps for whatever reason,then so be it,go back and switch to new classes.
Point being i want a CLASS to feel like a class and not some multi changing jack of all trades on the fly.Nobody should be carrying 10 different swords or 5 sets of armor to quickly change after each encounter.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Comments
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Brad McQuaid
CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
www.pantheonmmo.com
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Brad McQuaid
CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
www.pantheonmmo.com
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거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
I have been following Pantheon since KS and from time to time stop into the Pantheon forums. I have to say some (okay a lot) of the ideas being thrown out by the community there scare me. A lot of the ideas just appear to be EQ mechanics on steroids, the harsher the better.
I loved EQ and I want another EQ like game but with a more modern take on somethings. Pantheon is looking to be that and I hope it ends up that way at release.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
First, it was about 23 of us who made EQ and everyone played an important role. Yes, it was Smed's original desire to make an online RPG and his ability to get it funded that pretty much started the whole thing -- without him, there would be no EQ..
I was Producer on the project (in charge of development, design, planning -- pretty much everything was my responsibility whether I was working on it or someone who reported to me was working on it). Ultimately however it was my responsibility to get it finished and out the door. Smed kept the funding going and I kept the project going. I did this, kept to the schedule, and delivered what would become the most profitable venture Sony was ever involved with on time.
Steve Clover is one of my oldest and dearest friends. He worked with me on some smaller projects before EQ. Steve and I were both hired to work on EQ on 3/3/96 and were the first two members of the EQ team. He became the lead programmer. He also helped me with the design, and both of us worked on lore, story, and setting until Bill Trost and others came along. From a design standpoint I would say he had the most influence after me.
Bill Trost I was able to hire a few months later. He had also helped me on a previous project (WarWizard 2). When he came on board Steve and I handed the world, the setting, the story and lore to him. He came up with the gods, many of the storylines, key figures, etc. He later had help, but I would credit him ultimately with the lore. From a systems standpoint he did come up with the Faction system that was seen in so many MMOs after EQ -- we were going to go with a simple alignment system ala D&D and MUDs, but then he proposed the faction system and we all fell in love with it.
EQ was hardly the 'only' game in town. This is another bit of misinformation that rears its head periodically. Before EQ you had M59 and UO. UO when we launched had several hundred thousand subscribers. Soon after came games like AO and DAoC. These were all fine games even though EQ surpassed them in subscribers and peaked at approx. 550k paying subs. To say that there was no competition is basically saying these other games were crap, an assertion not only inaccurate but also offensive to those who worked on them.
EQ hit it's peak around the time the second expansion came out and around the same time I left. I was also Producer/Executive Producer on Kunark and Velious.
EQ wasn't dethroned until several years after its release and it was Final Fantasy that did it. Despite this, EQ lost very few subs -- what was happening and what continued to happen for many years is that the gamespace was growing. The number of people (and the types of people) interested in online games began to grow like crazy. It was a long time before an MMO would come out and you could see numbers drop in other MMOs, and this goes all the way back. For example, while EQ surpassed UO in subs, UO's subs barely dropped at all. Why? Again, the gamespace was growing.
So, NO, as soon as 'concurrence' began EQ's number did NOT begin to tank. What finally led to EQ's numbers going down was primarily the age of the game. At some point, people want a new game with new graphics, etc. Look at WoW -- WoW has lost millions of players -- is that because of some other MMO out there successfully competing with it? Did the mythical WoW-killer get launched while I was asleep and I somehow missed it? Certainly not. The game is getting old and people are slowly but surely leaving it. Btw, EQ is still running and is 17 years old -- rumor has it there are still around 50k subs. Vanguard, despite all of its issues, was live for 7 years. How many other MMOs can boast this?
'Brad failed everything else he made'. Well, other than EQ and it's first two expansions the only other MMO I've worked on was Vanguard. It did fail from a financial standpoint, although those who stuck around or returned to it have pretty much only positive things to say about the design, gameplay, etc. So I've had one major success and one major failure. This does not translate into 'everything else he made'. If you are curious about what happened with VG, dig around and read up on it. Try to get to the facts and not get mired down by upset people spinning the truth or, worse yet, some misinformation from a disgruntled former employee.
Without the two others to balance him it was one bad decision followed by another? Interesting theory. Fact is, however, that Steve Clover left SoE to come work with me on Vanguard. I guess you missed that pesky fact too? In fact, not long after Vanguard was in development there were more people who had worked on EQ working on Vanguard than who were still working on EQ (or EQ 2, for that matter).
And I've never worked on an MMO 'on my own' -- I've always surrounded myself with amazing people, without whom EQ and VG would have been shallow shells of games instead of what they turned into. And I can proudly say that the Pantheon team is the finest I've ever worked with. What we've accomplished with so little is simply unprecedented. I am lucky to be able to take not only my success and good decisions and put them to use, but I've also learned from my mistakes and one of my jobs is to keep us from repeating them.
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Brad McQuaid
CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
www.pantheonmmo.com
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거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
There are a lot of ways to make the grind more fun today, but ultimately there will always be grind in a game based around progression if your achievements are to have any meaning. Its a simulation of work. It should be fun, it shouldn't be entirely static or predictable, but it will exist in some form or another.
I admit, I am a little disappointed with zones and hope they find a way to preload an area before you enter it to avoid loading screens. Still, its way down on the list of important things for me.
Like I said, even if you have skill levels but no character level, its the same thing. It serves the same purpose and in a game with more rigidly designed content, it will only make assessing your power and that of your groupmates more problematic - and for no real good reason, imo.
Who is supposedly trying to be a "WOW killer"?
Who is supposedly trying to please everyone?
For whom it hasn't worked?
Who is supposedly not trying their audience happy?
All the most successfull MMOs are indeed so called "WoW-clones", so I fail to see where you are coming from.
The reason for large budgets is simply what it takes to release competitive product - in terms of quality and content. There is no way around that, that has nothing to do with trying to be a "WoW-killer".
It is simple principle of market competition(along with advancing technology) that drives production costs up.
You may try and go for more, scaled-down design to lower the overall cost while keeping the quality but that does not seem a path you are pursuing, you are trying to make a fully fledged MMO without necessary funding.
I do not wish you any ill, far from it, I just cannot imagine how do you see this as feasible endeavor without sacrificing quality considerably and thinking that people will play the game just because of game mechanics, ignoring high standards established by large budget titles they are used to.
So given that, I do not think it is all that afar from what you said...despite probably you didn't mean it that way.
You can be niche and also be very happy and successful.
I'm a small niche company with 32 employees I do less than $10,000,000 a year in sales, manage to pay my employees a living wage $16-$36 per hour with full benefits and still manage to give myself a high end 6 figure salary.
You seem to have a very jaded view of what is or can be a success.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
EQ
EQ was great up until PoP expansion. While this expansion brought in some interesting content and raiding, it also brought in the portal stones, to port to just about any zone. Killing the original idea of 'working together' with having certain classes being useful for certain things. In this particular case, Druids and Wizards for transportation.
Perhaps SOE was getting desperate to try to keep subs, and they thought that travel times to zones were driving away players?
Anyways, I hated it, especially being a Wizard, and seeing one of the main usefulness of my class become obsolete struck a sore chord..
Vanguard....
I was there from Beta.
I stayed about 4 years. post release.
I finally gave up on the game for a few reasons, here are some..
1.) The content they were releasing, which wasn't a terrible amount, had a lot of grind in it.
2.) The game did not get the attention I thought it needed to become more successful than it could have.
3.) Perhaps Silius's hands were tied in ways we couldn't see, but I didn't agree with how he handled things with the game and the community.
What killed Vanguard, was it was released too early with too many bugs, and was very unplayable on most people's PCs. Chunk-line hitching and especially CTDs(Crash to Desktops) happened very often. It was one of the things that killed the game. That stuff wasn't sorted until basically 6-9 months after release.
By then, pretty much too late. First impressions count, and I think there's only so many hard cord EQ gamers around to stick with Vanguard.
Vanguard only stayed around because of SOE keeping the lights on. SOE 'eventually' got the game playing stable and cleaned up a few things. But I don't think SOE did enough. From what I recall, SMED chose to pump money into his 'Free Realms' project.. Which funnily enough, closed down a few months before they closed Vanguard. Vanguard was treated like the unwanted stepchild by SOE. It wasn't given a chance to really shine.
No need to defend your EQ experience, when you've openly claimed you played UO and AC instead of EQ many times on these forums. Your second hand wikipedia level of knowledge and understanding of EQ is painfully obvious to those who actually played it, so spare us.
And enough with the goading already. The game Visionary Realms is making IS the game the public wants - at least the segment that wants an actual massively multiplayer virtual world rather than another fantasy lobby game. Pretending Brad is ignoring our wishes is just dishonest.
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Brad McQuaid
CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
www.pantheonmmo.com
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I do realize though where Pantheon is heading. MMORPG market, the traditional MMORPG tiles like Pantheon is trying to be, is very small, very crowded and very competitive.
There is rather very simple way how to demonstrate my point: What games on the market currently make at least as much money as Pantheon needs(+5M a year?)..?
Pantheon needs revenue that is incredible difficult to achieve for small teams because you will be already competing with top quality titles on that level.
Just look at likely the only successful niche title that could be somewhat compared to what Pantheon is trying to do here - EVE Online. The game came out with top notch graphics and polish, it was very high quality product that was developed after release at unprecedented speed. And it was still very hard for them to make it, that was "back then" and they were truly "niche" unlike Pantheon.
So yeah, I do not see them achieving required quality for the size of player base they are aiming at.
And I even think McQuaid is painfully aware of it as their development progress and they are trying to polish the game...because that is actually the hardest part about it.
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Brad McQuaid
CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
www.pantheonmmo.com
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A spit in the bucket if you're trying to please a bunch of shareholders.
More than enough to keep a small dev team doing what they love to do and living a very comfortable life for themselves and their families.
I believe the people working on this game, know a lot more about the business than you or I do.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Based on?
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
You speak about realistic expectations that have no basis? Huh?
I base my speculation on games like Alganon, League of Angels and a myriad of others being able to stay afloat.
"So much for realistic expectations..." implies you know something.
So what the fuck do you know?
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Simple Definition of speculation
: ideas or guesses about something that is not known
: activity in which someone buys and sells things (such as stocks or pieces of property) in the hope of making a large profit but with the risk of a large loss
Sure thing Confucius
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
It comes down to two types of games,linear questing or killing mobs and for me,i want CHOICE to kill mobs because we already have far too many linear questing games flooding the market.
So on that note,i want a CLASS system ,similar to FFXI.If you want a certain set of abilities then go home and switch to that class and sub class.The problem from my viewpoint is no game will ever match the Ninja type tank but of course we will see often times a Paladin or melee type tank.
Now if the have or will implement say for example Piercing damage,then my tank needs to utilize armor that limits piercing damage,i am good with that but i do NOT want to have to switch some FAKE class to attain a different set of abilities after every single fight,that would be nonsense.
I want to grab say a Warrior and know i am fighting Blunt type mobs for an hour or two,so myself and the group come equipped accordingly.if we decide to change camps for whatever reason,then so be it,go back and switch to new classes.
Point being i want a CLASS to feel like a class and not some multi changing jack of all trades on the fly.Nobody should be carrying 10 different swords or 5 sets of armor to quickly change after each encounter.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.