We have a real clash between classic and modern with posters here, I don't think either is the best way to make a MMORPG. There are many ways you can take a hybrid approach, from having no corpse runs to having no loot boxes.
Right now, I'm on a bit of tear about people picking the wrong games.
If exploring a world, or learning some mechanics, or doing some hunting to get some good gear is a too much of an inconvenience, then these people shouldn't be in a MMORPG.
They need to go back to Bejeweled.
Furthermore, they should be ignored in Discord and on forums and so forth - if a person has a track record of buying and completing a dozen "MMORPGS" per year then getting advice from that person on game design is like getting marriage advice from a Elizabeth Taylor.
There might be some fun observations in there, but nothing about long term success.
MMORGs have a greater variety of gameplay than any genre, so it can seem like the fan base is rather mismatched. The drive to simpler, quicker gameplay has been with us since WOW, it is one of the things that needs a rebalancing, we are moving towards games where you push one button to win.
That final screenshot is absolutely horrid. Between the shack that looks like something Nickelodeon would've drawn in the 90s and the ground texture, I'm glad I opted out of all testing.
You did see in the review some zones have more placeholder graphics like this one, yes?
Not likely to be the final take on it.
I've been in relationships with two professional artists, one of which went on to do work for Pixar. I don't expect that quality of work from every artist, but you're going to be hard pressed to convince me that the work in the screenshot above took years of effort.
Probably took a few hours seeing that it probably is one of the many placeholders in one of the newer zones.
Basically they restarted all graphics about a year or so back, tossing out all previous graphics work to date.
You're not informing me of anything new, I backed it in 2014. They restarted the graphics years ago, the excuse holds no water.
They changed the art design a year ago.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
It's odd to me when people say BOTH the following things:
- It's stupid when people like modern MMOs with fetch quests and kill quests in various formats. How boring!
- I love MMOs where there are few to no quests, amd you just kill the same mobs 100 times over and over. So fun!
The manner in which someone "grinds" their progression doesn't really matter. It's just preference. Some people find enjoyment sitting in a field, killing 100 floating eyeballs. That's fine.
While the idea of "content" is somewhat subjective, the objective parts are more clear:
- Variety of enemies - Variety of locations/biomes - Variety of items/weapons/armors etc.
If any game, MMO or otherwise, has little to no variation in these things, that's a fundamental flaw. It's lazy design. Using speed tree and having bland environments with a handful of mobs is lazy and shows a lack of effort. I'm not saying Pantheon suffers from all this, but I DO feel they have little to show for the several years It's been "in development", and I question whether it offers anything unique that isn't already existing or better in other MMOs.
The genre is SATURATED, and the last thing it needs is more lazy half-baked cash grabs playing off the dreams of a somewhat bored and restless player base. Pantheon only entered Steam "Early Access" because people quit buying their kickstarter packages. And I'm skeptical it'll be much better than what it already offers. And as MY OPINION, I feel like it offers nothing worthwhile.
We have a real clash between classic and modern with posters here, I don't think either is the best way to make a MMORPG. There are many ways you can take a hybrid approach, from having no corpse runs to having no loot boxes.
Interesting take. I see it as people with standards debating people who seemingly lack them.
Looks, feels, and plays like a 20-year-old game. Think Everquest 2, but alpha.
Wha... why? Just, WHY?
Because this is the EQ2 we should have gotten.
"Think EQ2, but Good", would be more appropriate, at least if you were a classic eq player.
The Graphics are fine and progressing nicely.
Never say "think" before something, it shows you're inability to describe or qualify what you're speaking to. And this game is terrible. I won't be surprised if it never makes it out of EA before shut down.
It's odd to me when people say BOTH the following things:
- It's stupid when people like modern MMOs with fetch quests and kill quests in various formats. How boring!
To be clear I've never said it was "stupid" that anyone likes anything. I am assuming your comment is directed to me as I said "I" don't like mmorpg quests. I used to when they first started being added, I actually thought it was a breath of fresh air.
But then they started cramming as many of these quests into their games as they could and what was asked of the player was very little.
"I" don't like theme park games for the most part. I can enjoy them for small bits at a time.
If other people like them then more power to them. If people like grinding more power to them. If people like the idea of afk fishing then more power to them.
Otherwise I agree, for the most part, the rest of your post. Pantheon DID launch on steam because they need more money but that's fine by me.
When they did their first kick starter they had no game but people gave money. Now, I didn't and I could have said "what are you nuts? They have nothing to show you" but I don't particularly care what people do with their money. I only threw them $100 after they showed a lot more game play.
Early access is a gamble but as long as people can get some fun out of it, knowing it's an alpha, then I don't see any issue.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
We have a real clash between classic and modern with posters here, I don't think either is the best way to make a MMORPG. There are many ways you can take a hybrid approach, from having no corpse runs to having no loot boxes.
Right now, I'm on a bit of tear about people picking the wrong games.
If exploring a world, or learning some mechanics, or doing some hunting to get some good gear is a too much of an inconvenience, then these people shouldn't be in a MMORPG.
They need to go back to Bejeweled.
Furthermore, they should be ignored in Discord and on forums and so forth - if a person has a track record of buying and completing a dozen "MMORPGS" per year then getting advice from that person on game design is like getting marriage advice from a Elizabeth Taylor.
There might be some fun observations in there, but nothing about long term success.
MMORGs have a greater variety of gameplay than any genre, so it can seem like the fan base is rather mismatched. The drive to simpler, quicker gameplay has been with us since WOW, it is one of the things that needs a rebalancing, we are moving towards games where you push one button to win.
Yeah you'll even see an occasional MMO (mostly mobile) where it auto-plays for you including traveling from one point to another.....How the times have changed.
"Currently, the graphics are awful. Pantheon: Rise of The Fallen looks like a game from around the year 2000 that has some improved textures and uses a lot of placeholder assets because it’s in an Alpha state."
That is an indefensible position. Are we really going to sit here and pretend that EQ1 didn't come out in March of 1999, that Luclin graphics weren't in 2001? You're saying that these graphics are worse than Luclin? Really? DAOC 1.0 (2001) graphics are better? Phantasy Star Online? (2001) I mean even WoW (2004)? Go look at WoW classic armor. It's Body Paint with shoulder pads, boots, and gloves. Aside from that, all armor sticks to those characters. This doesn't pass the smell test for someone well versed in the genre. The above statement needs a firm edit.
There are PLENTY of things to be critical of when it comes to Pantheon, that's not one of them. Also doing a review of a game in EA is like doing a review of a game in Beta. What's the point? To what end? Who does it serve? 3 months from now the entire review is fiction.
Looks, feels, and plays like a 20-year-old game. Think Everquest 2, but alpha.
Wha... why? Just, WHY?
Because games that play like older games seem to be better, more interesting? Not sure the confusion?
I just watched a video where a young guy, 20's, had his teen sister play skyrim. At the end she said she'd give it a 3 out of 10 as it seemed like a game that would take too much time and she couldn't skip over the dialogue at times.
She hated the walking and that it wasn't multiplayer. So there we have it, the future of video games.
I wouldn't be surprised if future elder scrolls games started becoming just what she described.
Better in what way? Because from what I see it's: - Ugly - Janky - Bland - Simplistic - Lacking depth - Lacking creativity - Lacking content
EQ2 isn't a bad game. There's nothing wrong with GOOD old-school games. But that isn't an excuse to crap out an uninspired clone of a dated genre, while offering NOTHING the other games don't. The MMO genre is super full, and the last thing it needs is something slapped together that doesn't improve upon the 2 decades old tech it claims to have been "inspired by".
It looks like the devs have no experience making video games, and more resembles something a few college students slapped together in a month.
Ugly - I started video games when a dot and two rectangles were amazing so going to agree to disagree.
- Janky - There are new games that are janky
- Bland - There are new games that are bland
- Simplistic - I feel modern mmorpg's having you run around to do very little only to rinse and repeat is simplistic. Keep in mind that for me, Lineage 2 was on the right track for an mmorpg where a player could live. - Lacking depth - Your going to have to be more clear on this because so many people think breadth is depth. - Lacking creativity - That's beyond not true. Older games had to summon a LOT of creativity in order to create things with very little. Summoner was creative, Morrowind was hellah creative. Heck, original Baldur's gate was creative. I'd say the orignal Everquest was creative but they were under a deadline and had to rush things before putting it out.
- Lacking content - Your mileage may vary on that. If you mean awful quests ad nauseam and you consider that good content then good on you.
Now keep in mind with my statement I'm not talking Pantheon though it's look is "fine." Not great as I'm a proponent of the original look. I'm talking "older games."
But currently I'm playing Daggerfall and there is quite a bit of creativity and content Interesting enough there is also climbing.
I'll also give a huge shout out to Dread Delusion a "modern" game that hearkens back to older games.
If the original claim was "I think this is great and all those points appeal to me.", then I would probably pass on by. However, the claim was this this game is the EQ2 we deserved and implies it's better which is an insult to the SOE dev team that built EQ2 and to the community and fans.
This hulking piece of dollar store trash is nowhere in the same league as EQ2, which has actually innovated and brought great systems to the genre; like it's instanced housing system with scaling free-form placement and integrated broker where visitors could get a discount on the players wares. EQ2 was beautiful, while this looks horrible.
Subjective is fine, but false equivalency is just wrong. People can like this game all they want for all I care. I'm not going to tell others what to play or not, but lets not also start pretending it stands equally among its betters, like EQ, EQ2, or Vanguard. It's like comparing a beginner junior high orchestra to an elite professional symphony.
You're right, but let's not compare FINISHED EQ2 with Alpha State video games, Pantheon or not. This quotation is also riddled with false equivalency. The comments of it being the real EQ2 are more of a generalized comment on what the game's goal is and meant to be upon it's completion, not it's current state. We all know that. When a kid running track says he's gonna be the next Usain Bolt, he's not literally saying he wants to be Usain Bolt, he's saying his goal is to be the fastest. It's all philosophical jargon. Nobody is calling up EQ2 devs and trying to humiliate them. Besides...Brad McQuaid himself, was an EQ2 dev lol.
There are PLENTY of things to be critical of when it comes to Pantheon, that's not one of them. Also doing a review of a game in EA is like doing a review of a game in Beta. What's the point? To what end? Who does it serve? 3 months from now the entire review is fiction.
1. That certainly IS one of them
2. It’s the COMPANY that made the decision to lunch into early access. Selling their product. The point of the review is so that people know exactly what they are buying.
3. If anything the review was overly positive based on the actual game as it exists.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
"Currently, the graphics are awful. Pantheon: Rise of The Fallen looks like a game from around the year 2000 that has some improved textures and uses a lot of placeholder assets because it’s in an Alpha state."
That is an indefensible position. Are we really going to sit here and pretend that EQ1 didn't come out in March of 1999, that Luclin graphics weren't in 2001? You're saying that these graphics are worse than Luclin? Really? DAOC 1.0 (2001) graphics are better? Phantasy Star Online? (2001) I mean even WoW (2004)? Go look at WoW classic armor. It's Body Paint with shoulder pads, boots, and gloves. Aside from that, all armor sticks to those characters. This doesn't pass the smell test for someone well versed in the genre. The above statement needs a firm edit.
There are PLENTY of things to be critical of when it comes to Pantheon, that's not one of them. Also doing a review of a game in EA is like doing a review of a game in Beta. What's the point? To what end? Who does it serve? 3 months from now the entire review is fiction.
And what small independent mmorpg has better? Project Gorgon? Monsters and Memories? Camelot Unchained has about the same. What were you expecting?
Pantheon has exactly the level of graphics it should have given a small team let alone a troubled development history.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Looks, feels, and plays like a 20-year-old game. Think Everquest 2, but alpha.
Wha... why? Just, WHY?
They are trying to appeal to the niche market of those that prefer the MMORPGs of yesteryear but are looking for something fresh in that style, while of course hoping to profit by doing so.
The game is barely in alpha and quite honestly, there's no features to justify this game existing.
It feels like a game aimed at people who play EQ timelocked progression servers. There's nothing _new_ here, zero innovations or interesting design. No thought or effort was put into the world itself beyond "here's where you camp mobs with a group."
It's a game for people who enjoy sitting in one place camping mob spawns for hours. I'm not bashing these people(I know a few), but it's definitely not for me and one of the things about EQ I hated.
Notice I did not say it's for people who liked EQ, but a specific kind of EQ. It does not have the interesting factions, interesting NPCs, storylines, quests, etc., It uses WoW-style NPCs/quests which are just "go collect 10 boar butts". Maybe this will improve in the future, but if you're asking $40 I will judge it as it is right now.
I'm sure people who love that specific aspect of EQ this copies will disagree with me, but that was just _one_ aspect of EQ.
—
My opinion?
If you're not the specific niche target audience of this and want an indie MMO to try that actually attempts to set itself apart…
You can grab Project Gorgon for $10 right now. I've put about 1000 hours into it and really enjoyed it, it should have a much bigger playerbase than it does, very unique little indie small-M MMO.
[edit] re: graphics comments, Pantheon looks fine. The issue here is it runs awful for how it looks. I assume this will be addressed eventually. The animations are likewise, fine. I had no issue with any of this.
It's odd to me when people say BOTH the following things:
- It's stupid when people like modern MMOs with fetch quests and kill quests in various formats. How boring!
- I love MMOs where there are few to no quests, amd you just kill the same mobs 100 times over and over. So fun!
The manner in which someone "grinds" their progression doesn't really matter. It's just preference. Some people find enjoyment sitting in a field, killing 100 floating eyeballs. That's fine.
While the idea of "content" is somewhat subjective, the objective parts are more clear:
- Variety of enemies - Variety of locations/biomes - Variety of items/weapons/armors etc.
If any game, MMO or otherwise, has little to no variation in these things, that's a fundamental flaw. It's lazy design. Using speed tree and having bland environments with a handful of mobs is lazy and shows a lack of effort. I'm not saying Pantheon suffers from all this, but I DO feel they have little to show for the several years It's been "in development", and I question whether it offers anything unique that isn't already existing or better in other MMOs.
The genre is SATURATED, and the last thing it needs is more lazy half-baked cash grabs playing off the dreams of a somewhat bored and restless player base. Pantheon only entered Steam "Early Access" because people quit buying their kickstarter packages. And I'm skeptical it'll be much better than what it already offers. And as MY OPINION, I feel like it offers nothing worthwhile.
If you feel it offers nothing then don't buy into it. The genre isn't saturated with MMORPGs that provide what this game hopes to offer, at least not in terms of that recently released and most of the old games still running have filed off the edges over the years to try to maintain their remaining audience.
So, to some it may be worth a go. Embers Adrift shows that even games with modest offerings and goals can endure despite low expectations so there is a chance this one may as well. It's not as though the cost is extreme for those inclined.
That final screenshot is absolutely horrid. Between the shack that looks like something Nickelodeon would've drawn in the 90s and the ground texture, I'm glad I opted out of all testing.
You did see in the review some zones have more placeholder graphics like this one, yes?
Not likely to be the final take on it.
I've been in relationships with two professional artists, one of which went on to do work for Pixar. I don't expect that quality of work from every artist, but you're going to be hard pressed to convince me that the work in the screenshot above took years of effort.
Probably took a few hours seeing that it probably is one of the many placeholders in one of the newer zones.
Basically they restarted all graphics about a year or so back, tossing out all previous graphics work to date.
You're not informing me of anything new, I backed it in 2014. They restarted the graphics years ago, the excuse holds no water.
They changed the art design a year ago.
It's been over a year, 247 was a year ago. Closer to two than one at this point. Again, no excuse for why the ground looks like spaghetti with meat sauce run through a sepia filter in Photoshop.
We have a real clash between classic and modern with posters here, I don't think either is the best way to make a MMORPG. There are many ways you can take a hybrid approach, from having no corpse runs to having no loot boxes.
Interesting take. I see it as people with standards debating people who seemingly lack them.
Well can you tell us what standards you are talking about? Presumably not difficulty or the importance of grouping? Perhaps graphics and the housing? I played EQ2 for years (but not EQ) myself and it was a good game.
This is a different take, made with less money and that shows. Personally the graphics alone might mean it is not for me, undecided as yet, but we can't expect CF MMOs to live up to AAA values if that's the standards you are talking about. When it comes to housing etc, all that stuff could be added in later I really don't see an issue there.
Fact is they milked the suckers for ten years of dev salaries and when they realized the well had run dry they rushed this crap to alpha release to bleed just a few more dollars out. Exactly how do they plan on paying future development with no month sub? Only three ways it goes implement a monthly sub, they go to a dlc model, or the game just dies. I am leaning toward the last as this thing has had no direction since Brad died.
We have a real clash between classic and modern with posters here, I don't think either is the best way to make a MMORPG. There are many ways you can take a hybrid approach, from having no corpse runs to having no loot boxes.
Interesting take. I see it as people with standards debating people who seemingly lack them.
Well can you tell us what standards you are talking about? Presumably not difficulty or the importance of grouping? Perhaps graphics and the housing? I played EQ2 for years (but not EQ) myself and it was a good game.
This is a different take, made with less money and that shows. Personally the graphics alone might mean it is not for me, undecided as yet, but we can't expect CF MMOs to live up to AAA values if that's the standards you are talking about. When it comes to housing etc, all that stuff could be added in later I really don't see an issue there.
Standards in practice, for one. VR has a track record of blatantly misleading people whether it was via Project Faerthale being a tech demo with the actual intentions of enticing investors and never being meant as the actual basis for the game which they would later scrap and explain the truth about, the obfuscation of 24/7 testing being manipulated into a "battle royale" mode with the project being named 247 (yeah, totally not intentional right?) or how it was supposedly mandatory in order for progress to be made until it was met with so much pushback they canc'ed it, and now with their video on Steam saying it's "single purchase" yet for the past 10 years it's been understood that the game will have a subscription after release and them not only NOT saying that in the forums, but deleting threads and banning users bringing up the video.
They're not a good company. Heck, they're not even a decent company. If I could go back and undo the money I gave them in good faith 10 years ago, I absolutely would. Perhaps if someone just waves their hands in front of me like they're doing a jedi mind trick and tries to explain away everything with "IT'S ALPHA WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?" one more time, it'll work. Here's hoping.
Fact is they milked the suckers for ten years of dev salaries and when they realized the well had run dry they rushed this crap to alpha release to bleed just a few more dollars out. Exactly how do they plan on paying future development with no month sub? Only three ways it goes implement a monthly sub, they go to a dlc model, or the game just dies. I am leaning toward the last as this thing has had no direction since Brad died.
I feel as I may have just witnessed this in FO.
After they promised no wipe they rushed to a release, did a wipe, and then had a bunch of new players come in as a means of raising more funds. We warned against this move, but I'm not sure the developer had much choice. The players numbers are sub 100 again and dropping like a stone - if the game is still live come spring I'll be surprised.
The developers appear to get pushed in to a corner and start to flail. The best we can do is just avoid the mayhem.
Fact is they milked the suckers for ten years of dev salaries and when they realized the well had run dry they rushed this crap to alpha release to bleed just a few more dollars out. Exactly how do they plan on paying future development with no month sub? Only three ways it goes implement a monthly sub, they go to a dlc model, or the game just dies. I am leaning toward the last as this thing has had no direction since Brad died.
First, welcome to the forums!
Secondly… is this true that now they are hiding the plan for monetization by making people think it’s B2P?
Didn’t some of their pledge tiers include x months subscription time?
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Fact is they milked the suckers for ten years of dev salaries and when they realized the well had run dry they rushed this crap to alpha release to bleed just a few more dollars out. Exactly how do they plan on paying future development with no month sub? Only three ways it goes implement a monthly sub, they go to a dlc model, or the game just dies. I am leaning toward the last as this thing has had no direction since Brad died.
First, welcome to the forums!
Secondly… is this true that now they are hiding the plan for monetization by making people think it’s B2P?
Didn’t some of their pledge tiers include x months subscription time?
The video on Steam says that the product is single purchase, backing it gave you the first month free in the beginning but the tier rewards have shifted so much I can't even state for certain if or when they changed that. When the question was brought up in the Steam forums, the thread was deleted and the OP was banned. People bringing the video up have also been banned. They should be de-platformed but it'll only happen if enough people report them most likely.
Fact is they milked the suckers for ten years of dev salaries and when they realized the well had run dry they rushed this crap to alpha release to bleed just a few more dollars out. Exactly how do they plan on paying future development with no month sub? Only three ways it goes implement a monthly sub, they go to a dlc model, or the game just dies. I am leaning toward the last as this thing has had no direction since Brad died.
First, welcome to the forums!
Secondly… is this true that now they are hiding the plan for monetization by making people think it’s B2P?
Didn’t some of their pledge tiers include x months subscription time?
The video on Steam says that the product is single purchase, backing it gave you the first month free in the beginning but the tier rewards have shifted so much I can't even state for certain if or when they changed that. When the question was brought up in the Steam forums, the thread was deleted and the OP was banned. People bringing the video up have also been banned. They should be de-platformed but it'll only happen if enough people report them most likely.
I just looked and the old packages did come with subscriptions. Like 3 months, 6 month, 1 year or even lifetime.
Fact is they milked the suckers for ten years of dev salaries and when they realized the well had run dry they rushed this crap to alpha release to bleed just a few more dollars out. Exactly how do they plan on paying future development with no month sub? Only three ways it goes implement a monthly sub, they go to a dlc model, or the game just dies. I am leaning toward the last as this thing has had no direction since Brad died.
First, welcome to the forums!
Secondly… is this true that now they are hiding the plan for monetization by making people think it’s B2P?
Didn’t some of their pledge tiers include x months subscription time?
The video on Steam says that the product is single purchase, backing it gave you the first month free in the beginning but the tier rewards have shifted so much I can't even state for certain if or when they changed that. When the question was brought up in the Steam forums, the thread was deleted and the OP was banned. People bringing the video up have also been banned. They should be de-platformed but it'll only happen if enough people report them most likely.
I suspect it’s not bringing it up but how they bring it up that gets them banned.
nothing ever changes.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Comments
They changed the art design a year ago.
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
- It's stupid when people like modern MMOs with fetch quests and kill quests in various formats. How boring!
- I love MMOs where there are few to no quests, amd you just kill the same mobs 100 times over and over. So fun!
The manner in which someone "grinds" their progression doesn't really matter. It's just preference. Some people find enjoyment sitting in a field, killing 100 floating eyeballs. That's fine.
While the idea of "content" is somewhat subjective, the objective parts are more clear:
- Variety of enemies
- Variety of locations/biomes
- Variety of items/weapons/armors etc.
If any game, MMO or otherwise, has little to no variation in these things, that's a fundamental flaw. It's lazy design. Using speed tree and having bland environments with a handful of mobs is lazy and shows a lack of effort. I'm not saying Pantheon suffers from all this, but I DO feel they have little to show for the several years It's been "in development", and I question whether it offers anything unique that isn't already existing or better in other MMOs.
The genre is SATURATED, and the last thing it needs is more lazy half-baked cash grabs playing off the dreams of a somewhat bored and restless player base. Pantheon only entered Steam "Early Access" because people quit buying their kickstarter packages. And I'm skeptical it'll be much better than what it already offers. And as MY OPINION, I feel like it offers nothing worthwhile.
Interesting take. I see it as people with standards debating people who seemingly lack them.
Never say "think" before something, it shows you're inability to describe or qualify what you're speaking to. And this game is terrible. I won't be surprised if it never makes it out of EA before shut down.
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
Yeah you'll even see an occasional MMO (mostly mobile) where it auto-plays for you including traveling from one point to another.....How the times have changed.
That is an indefensible position. Are we really going to sit here and pretend that EQ1 didn't come out in March of 1999, that Luclin graphics weren't in 2001? You're saying that these graphics are worse than Luclin? Really? DAOC 1.0 (2001) graphics are better? Phantasy Star Online? (2001) I mean even WoW (2004)? Go look at WoW classic armor. It's Body Paint with shoulder pads, boots, and gloves. Aside from that, all armor sticks to those characters. This doesn't pass the smell test for someone well versed in the genre. The above statement needs a firm edit.
There are PLENTY of things to be critical of when it comes to Pantheon, that's not one of them. Also doing a review of a game in EA is like doing a review of a game in Beta. What's the point? To what end? Who does it serve? 3 months from now the entire review is fiction.
You're right, but let's not compare FINISHED EQ2 with Alpha State video games, Pantheon or not. This quotation is also riddled with false equivalency. The comments of it being the real EQ2 are more of a generalized comment on what the game's goal is and meant to be upon it's completion, not it's current state. We all know that. When a kid running track says he's gonna be the next Usain Bolt, he's not literally saying he wants to be Usain Bolt, he's saying his goal is to be the fastest. It's all philosophical jargon. Nobody is calling up EQ2 devs and trying to humiliate them. Besides...Brad McQuaid himself, was an EQ2 dev lol.
2. It’s the COMPANY that made the decision to lunch into early access. Selling their product. The point of the review is so that people know exactly what they are buying.
3. If anything the review was overly positive based on the actual game as it exists.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Pantheon has exactly the level of graphics it should have given a small team let alone a troubled development history.
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
They are trying to appeal to the niche market of those that prefer the MMORPGs of yesteryear but are looking for something fresh in that style, while of course hoping to profit by doing so.
It feels like a game aimed at people who play EQ timelocked progression servers. There's nothing _new_ here, zero innovations or interesting design. No thought or effort was put into the world itself beyond "here's where you camp mobs with a group."
It's a game for people who enjoy sitting in one place camping mob spawns for hours. I'm not bashing these people(I know a few), but it's definitely not for me and one of the things about EQ I hated.
Notice I did not say it's for people who liked EQ, but a specific kind of EQ. It does not have the interesting factions, interesting NPCs, storylines, quests, etc., It uses WoW-style NPCs/quests which are just "go collect 10 boar butts". Maybe this will improve in the future, but if you're asking $40 I will judge it as it is right now.
I'm sure people who love that specific aspect of EQ this copies will disagree with me, but that was just _one_ aspect of EQ.
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My opinion?
If you're not the specific niche target audience of this and want an indie MMO to try that actually attempts to set itself apart…
You can grab Project Gorgon for $10 right now. I've put about 1000 hours into it and really enjoyed it, it should have a much bigger playerbase than it does, very unique little indie small-M MMO.
[edit]
re: graphics comments,
Pantheon looks fine. The issue here is it runs awful for how it looks. I assume this will be addressed eventually.
The animations are likewise, fine. I had no issue with any of this.
If you feel it offers nothing then don't buy into it. The genre isn't saturated with MMORPGs that provide what this game hopes to offer, at least not in terms of that recently released and most of the old games still running have filed off the edges over the years to try to maintain their remaining audience.
So, to some it may be worth a go. Embers Adrift shows that even games with modest offerings and goals can endure despite low expectations so there is a chance this one may as well. It's not as though the cost is extreme for those inclined.
This is a different take, made with less money and that shows. Personally the graphics alone might mean it is not for me, undecided as yet, but we can't expect CF MMOs to live up to AAA values if that's the standards you are talking about. When it comes to housing etc, all that stuff could be added in later I really don't see an issue there.
They're not a good company. Heck, they're not even a decent company. If I could go back and undo the money I gave them in good faith 10 years ago, I absolutely would. Perhaps if someone just waves their hands in front of me like they're doing a jedi mind trick and tries to explain away everything with "IT'S ALPHA WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?" one more time, it'll work. Here's hoping.
After they promised no wipe they rushed to a release, did a wipe, and then had a bunch of new players come in as a means of raising more funds. We warned against this move, but I'm not sure the developer had much choice. The players numbers are sub 100 again and dropping like a stone - if the game is still live come spring I'll be surprised.
The developers appear to get pushed in to a corner and start to flail.
The best we can do is just avoid the mayhem.
Secondly… is this true that now they are hiding the plan for monetization by making people think it’s B2P?
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
So score the review as if what we have now IS the game.
What would that score be? 3? 5?
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2024: 47 years on the Net.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EQaIx_CNYXLn1KDuVMXQ8ojQdna0VaZ2yMHMaMOEDRQ/htmlview
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
nothing ever changes.
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