The Glade 4.0

Because he's apparently found Kickstarter, and has rustled together a thing, which he has decided to call Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen. Heh. That's kind of an apt name.

Anyways, I figured I'm in for $10, just to watch what happens from the inside. I'm pretty sure either hilarity or Vision® will ensue.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

At least you could say that his games last a long time... EQ1 and Vanguard are still going... although Vanguard is basically on standby mode last I heard

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I lost my respect about here:

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

To have respect left for him would require regaining respect after the EQ offenses. That hasn't happened.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

My first listen sounded like Brad wants to remake EverQuest for today, for the die hards. Can't complain 'bout that.

Brad McQuaid is the inspiration for Isaac in The Trenches.

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I have to hand it to them.. they're swinging for the fences on concept art. Even if you don't achieve the detail shown here, this is a fantastic idea for a high fantasy city to make you gasp at the sight...

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I don't see any reason to not have respect for Brad McQuaid. I don't think he's that great a businessman, but he designed a couple of pretty good games; one of which essentially fathered the MMO as we know it (taking it out of the proto-MMO era of Ultima Online) and one of which, had it not suffered from rushing and the associated bugs, could have been pretty good. Vanguard had some nice innovations and definitely restored some of the "hard" of EQ to MMOs; it just got a bad repuation from the start and was damaged goods after that. It also suffered from being basically pretty similar to WoW when WoW was only a little over 2 years old and just releasing its first expansion.

Vanguard is shutting down in a few months and he supposedly offered to buy it from SOE, which again doesn't speak well for his business acumen, but I don't think there's anything wrong with his ability to design a game - it's keeping the production schedule and money on track where he needs help.

Vanguard also could ahve adopted FTP a lot earlier, and it might have survived a while longer, but by 2012 its age was showing along with its reputation.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Respect or not, I'd be interested in seeing this game get made. Is a game with these ideals still viable for today's market?

Unfortunately it doesn't seem like the Kickstarter is going to reach its goal... so I have a feeling I'll have to just wonder some more.

Kickstarters have a pattern of surging at the end. Statistically, few projects actually fail if they break 75%, so I haven't given up yet. Also, they're planning on pulling a Star Citizen and keeping pledging open and ongoing post-campaign to count towards stretch goals, so the Ranger's not off the table even if it's a close call funding the initial campaign.

I've been really impressed by the conceptual class write-ups they've been doing. A lot of them are great pitches for what sound like exciting takes on classic classes. There's more than a couple that have piqued my interest in classes I normally pass over.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

That would be cool, then.

I have the urge to drop $10 in even thinking that I might not end up playing the game. Having an honest, complete effort put in on a game like this could only help the MMO market.

I totally understand the casual-friendliness and instant gratification most MMOs today offer, and I do think it's best for the subscriber count... but I want to believe there is a solid niche out there for something else.

Wow, his team is really bad at reading cue cards. While it sounds like a good idea...I am gonna have to say no right now.



It isn't that I don't play well with others, I just don't expect my friends to keep my hours.

And the lack of a ranger is really pissing me off. That should have been the first completed class.

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Raell Kromwell

There is. Its called EVE.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Ouch. Never played EVE but heard the players were pretty brutal

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

EVE works for that, but only if you're willing to buy into the PvP paradigm. There aren't any bluntly hard emergent PvE experiences out there. The closest PvE comes to difficulty anymore is "oh, there's a complex encounter script you have to memorize."

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Not entirely true. Sleepers (in wormholes) and Incursions both offer significantly more difficult enemies than the bog-standard ones in solo missions and asteroid belts, although there's still strong scripted aspects to both of them.

The real point of PVE in EVE is to introduce money and resources into the game for PVP... and EVERYTHING is PVP. It isn't just the "make the other guy's spaceship explode", the market, the politics, the scams.. all PVP in their own way.

And yes, the players are brutal. Even the "good" organizations, like Brave Newbies (my alliance) will happily engage anyone in their space if they can get away with it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The latest update on Kickstarter has a bunch of updated screenshots from work they've been doing on a few of the early locations. Definitely looking a lot better already.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

That looks a lot like the Imperial city from TES: Skyrim

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Apparently these **** are now planning on charging $15/month for forum access.

Kickstarter campaign is ending in three days and right now is just north of 50% goal, I don't think this game will ever see the light of day.

It's not looking good. Brad designs a hell of a game but he has no business running the business end of things. He needs to be under someone like Matt Frior, not at the helm himself.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It's not uncommon for kickstarters to do the majority of their funding in the last week.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

It is uncommon for a Kickstarter to make 50% of its goal in three days.

Pantheon is currently trending toward hitting 58% or $465,410 before it ends.

Oh, apparently my phone ate my post.

Kicktraq is notoriously bad at accounting for the final days' surge. My money's on closer to 70% at this point, at least.

The team has done a poor job, I think, of garnering media attention to sustain and build a bit of momentum in the last couple weeks. That, coupled with folks unhappy about a limited class/race selection, maybe. In any event, I wonder if maybe they're catering to too niche an audience to rack up the money they were looking for.

And, yeah, the charging for enhanced forum access (the way I read it, any backer gets forum access, but there's a "premium" forum that gets direct developer interaction, which isn't as bad) looks pretty sour for a project that's probably going to fail to attract a large enough audience to meet its goal in the first place -- this isn't a Star Citizen with 100,000 backers, where paring down the pool that has direct access to the developers actually makes sense because it's a huge community. That was definitely a dubious move that was spun horribly.

Still, maybe a bunch of folks hit the star and put it out of sight, out of mind. I do that on a lot of projects where I want to see where they go as they rack up some updates before making up my mind. And the class and race updates have been pretty intriguing. So maybe when the 48 hour notice hits, we'll get a bigger push than we think.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Suck a duck Brad!

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Raell Kromwell

Brad McQuaid nerfed the forums...

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