Brad McQuaids New MMORPG Pantheon (video)

Well said mortis. I am happy the official site will be keeping trolls away and i can't wait to see how things progress for them. I think it's time to forget the trolling and move on. I hope people stop arguing.

Let it go friend. Everyone is ready to move on to greener pastures.

Just a couple comments to the posts made thus far:

1. Those who are not funding does not indicate in absolute that there is no interest or desire from us to do so. There are a good number of us who are very interested in the game and eager to see such the product take off but are simply not able to do anything financially to support it. For myself, just as an example, I am not able to put money, any money at all into the project...however, what I was able to do was to redirect funding already paid to my webhost and domain provider and change my hosting plan so as to secure a new domain and hosting so as to have both my guild site and our new community site. Some may consider that this is of little to no importance, fair enough, but as has been noted above, Pantheon has limited access to their forums to those who have supported the game financially, for those of us who simply cannot do so having a place to discuss the game without having to deal with the under the bridge dwellers of other forums is a benefit. Further, I have personally invited the Pantheon team to join the forums (those who are on our Facebook group) and thus far one developer has already. Lastly, I have had a couple conversations with one developer thus far and have greatly enjoyed speaking with him and hearing his ideas and expressing mine. This is something that I cannot do via the Pantheon forums due to my present financial responsibilities and constraints.

2. Once bitten twice shy most certainly applies for many of us here - regardless of whether we are financially backing the game or not. I simply cannot justify giving a clean slate; I want to see that lessons have been learned. I will not support a project where the paying customer is allowed to be treated with such disrespect and disregard as what has been seen and noted, countless times, before. It is my strongly held opinion that one would be inviting further insult and injury if one were to choose to forget the past. Forgive, certainly if actions have indicated that lessons have been learned and ill fated choices will not be repeated. Taking just a moment to expand upon this - I am not referencing the choices of attitudes and the disrespectful replies and disregards of common courtesies here, for all of us know that when stressed it is easy to stumble on such steps...I am referring to game mechanics changes that drastically change the function of a game that I am paying to play. Further, not to salt a wound but to give an example for those who might be new to Vanguard and not understand some of the perspectives of the founding player base - I opened one of my three collector's box sets a few weeks back and there in the art book and promotional materials of the game was the Cave of Wonders information. Here, now, in 2014 it is finally coming to life. This game has been morphed and changed a number of times and yes, laying those changes in the hands of McQaid is unfair when he was not part of said changes, but some who brought about those changes are "the powers that be" of Pantheon. So I am going to take a bit more time to see actions put in place before a definitive decision is made, especially considering that my typical choice in gaming is to make a year long subscription choice for at least one account.

Everyone has a right to their opinion. Personally I would love to see something like VG released in a polished state as bugs and all, I still love this game and have since Beta. That said, it would take a lot for both myself and my family to put faith in their ability to do so. You can't praise someone constantly for a success and simply ignore a major failure and more importantly, how it was handled.

Maybe it's just me, having always been a "geek" to an extent where at one time I owned a small computer store, but I take pride in the systems that I built. I took offense when part of the blame at release was placed on systems not being adequate to handle a highly advanced game designed around the future advancements of gaming computers. At the same time complaining that 6 more months and another fist full of dollars would have released a polished game. Blame was placed on investors, producers, end users, schedule and anything that one could come up with other than the "Vision".

There must be some reason that even with strong backers, this game could not get off the ground. Of course later they admitted to those reasons. Hind-site is 20/20 only if you honestly learned from those mistakes. On one hand I believe that one can learn from mistakes and build on what the successes were attributed to; on the other, when you are looking for major investing and funding, you will paint a picture that appeals to those you are seeking the funding from. That makes me skeptical.

I'm also skeptical when one states that they want to release a large scale project that will work with a small budget, when the past has proven that their grandiose "visions", while awesome in concept, don't fit well into time frames and budgets. Most are aware that the major games out there that appeal more towards "old school" ( in size and scope) cost a good deal to develop. It would be hard to release something to sway those players into Pantheon if Pantheon can't deliver what those other games have failed to deliver. We know that the "niche" players out there want large amounts of content, refined mechanics and a world that provides immersion. That does not come quickly or cheaply.

Yes, I'm skeptical. Blizzard has never been able to create another WoW or even recreate the success of Diablo or even Starcraft for that matter. EQ has enjoyed years of followers despite it's aging. It does not however mean that the visionaries who through great talent created those games can recreate another based simply on past performance and merit. I have enjoyed years of gaming thanks to Brad, so I won't bash his work, but having experienced the lessons first hand in this game, I also won't give blind allegiance.

I also wanted to add that censorship is a dangerous tool. I'm not sure what the solution for handling trolls on the Pantheon site is, but censorship by requiring a subscription when you don't have a useable product yet seems like a bad idea.

I'm not sure if they can go about it by filing a cease and desist (if that's the right term) by means of slandering a companies name for the purpose of damaging their reputation to inhibit their ability to release a product creating undue financial hardship. The problem with that scenario is that one has to prove that the accusations are unfounded which can also backfire if you lose that case.

While some may pledge a monthly stipend for support of the company and the right to express opinions, the majority of would be interested parties (potential future customers) self included, will not. To say that those unwilling to pay don't have anything worthwhile to add if they won't back their words with their wallets is elitist at best. It empowers self important twits that think that $14.99 a month makes them partners in the company. Since most people won't lay down a monthly fee for something they are not a fan of, the opinions become less objective. To me it seems like taking a niche product and making that support base even smaller.

I don't see how a subscription fee forces censorship. Constructive criticisms are accepted and welcome. The sub fee just stops people from outright trolling. I think it's a great idea becuase it kills two birds with one stone. On one hand it helps to fund the project and as stated, on the other it helps discourage overly negative behavior.

I do agree however that there are certain dangers in empowering people with the cash to pay $14.99. It can and most certainly will lead to elitist type mentality. But i believe it to be the lesser of two evils. I myself can not afford the $14.99 fee as it stands. I must admit, and with a sense of shame that i do not have a lot of money and live on a very small budget. That's why i do my best to spread the word via forums and videos.

I am waiting to pledge any money until i have more to offer the project. I was going to go with my initial pledge of $25 but i would much rather wait and up that pledge to at least $45.

On the subject of private forums, i have seen it drive a wedge between communities before. H-Hour for example. There are private forums for people who were able to pay (i believe) $100 or more of private forum access. It helped the kickstarter as it was a tier, but it also angered a lot of people without the means to pledge for that level. I myself was unable to pledge beyond $50. I do my best to cover the game on my channel and promote it but i still feel left out, a lot of people do and they have expressed that feeling with anger. I think passion fuels a lot of that and i understand some people are mad out of passion or a sense of being left out because they have, shall we say, less deep pockets.

I support Pantheon!

This explains the new website a bit. I'm still learning more and more about it and i do believe they are going to be changing things and adding more in the near future.

It's interesting that some of the points that I brought out as negative, you view as a positive. Paying to be able to provide input on a product not yet released will prevent trolling and overly negative posts since no one wants to lose a monthly subscription fee? To me that will only create private sites that are more critical and in many cases more viewed by gamers.

Not being a KS site relieves the pressure on the company to produce faster and better results also does not sound like a positive since it sounds like the same excuses used for not being able to meet a schedule in this game at release. Not to mention that it pushes the game even further into a niche since the failed KS indicates some apprehension already to back the game financially with little to go on.

I also find it a bit ironic, that even though this is a the "Off Topic" section of a SoE site you find it a comfortable place to keep pushing their game while applauding them for squelching non-paid opinions on their own site.