Why Pantheon will Probably Fail

I had posted before about Brad McQuaid’s Pantheon  kickstarter, and now that there’s about two weeks left and the project sits at ($344,440/$800,000), I think it’s time I finally weighed in.

It’s probably not going to get funded.

I’ve had some ongoing arguments with a friend about the project, trying to probe him about why he doesn’t like it or won’t fund it – then align it with my own concerns, which I’ve laid out before: I don’t think the project is transparent enough to quell my reservations that Brad is just going to repeat Vanguard’s mistakes.

For as much information as Brad himself posts in public, and for as many interviews there are about the game in such a short amount of time, The Kickstarter page itself doesn’t have much in the way of concrete details. It doesn’t present the game experience that I would expect of the game in my own head on paper. The project itself isn’t transparent enough in terms of scheduling and costs for me to cough up my money.

At the end of the day, even though funded projects don’t have to deliver, this only increases the pressure to successfully kickstart a project by pulling people in and assuring them you will succeed, because people still want to see something completed.

For sure – large game projects have not had the astounding success we expected of their kickstarters. Shadowrun Returns, Star Command, and probably many others.

So – I think a good question for Visionary Realms (Incorporated? It’s public? Who owns shares?) to ask itself is: How do we show we can actually use Kickstarter to complete our own project?

I’m sure it deserves another shot after more work on the game is done and more transparency is given to the project, but now that I think about it…

I wonder why this publicly traded company – probably owned in parts by employees, public shareholders and other investors has to go to kickstarter for additional funding? We can reasonably say employees can’t pony up much more cash, but the public? Can’t risk dilution! So…

And this is when I realized that this project should tank. Whatever investors Visionary Realms has either don’t have the cash or have decided they’ve given enough and want to make sure they get ROI. Perhaps the operating budget shortfall Visionary has requires kickstarter, but here’s the thing:

We deserve to know about this just as much as the shareholders.

In essence, what I’m saying is that, intended or not, Visionary Realms is treating us like we’re second(Pfft. or third)-class investors. We don’t get to see project schedules, we don’t get to see project or company costs, but we’re being asked for free money, especially if the project fails to deliver.

This kickstarter should tank.

Inital Thoughts on Pantheon: Rise of The Fallen

Brad McQuaid recently tweeted about the project he’s been working on: Pantheon: Rise of The Fallen. No information has been formally announced about it, but a kickstarter is in the process of being set up and the project is in prototype stages.

Word of warning: While I’m supporting this project, I’m not going to be gentle, here. There’s some hard concerns in this post given old drama, rumors, and testimonials that are about over a decade old, now.

As far as I recall, Brad’s last project was Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. It was regarded as a 30 million dollar failure to Microsoft and then a derelict project grabbed by Sony Online Entertainment, only to die of mediocrity and abandonment from its patron and development team. Sigil was accused of bad software design by amateurs and Mismanagement on part of Brad McQuaid and Jeff Butler. Sigil burned to the ground amidst personal and professional troubles of both Brad and Jeff.

Vanguard happens to be one of the MMOs I really wish I could get the rights for and work on it myself. It had tremendous potential in the hands of good writers and content designers, and has some of the best class design I’ve ever seen. APW has been the best raiding experience for me since Everquest. What happened to that game was a damned shame – as well as what happened to that company. Regardless of how I felt, Sigil’s demise and the disaster that was Vanguard is what McQuaid has on his back right now going into Pantheon, and he has to prove himself to be redeemed.

I’ve long since quit the MMO genre. I find myself wanting more exploration, involvement, and interaction with my culture and game world than game-ish grinding and questing. Any MMO that wants to catch my eye or earn my money has to be very different and very niche. If there was a game that captured the immersion and vision of Everquest, perhaps take the best parts of Vanguard, and create a WORLD I could have a character in and realize and play out that character, I’d throw my subscription fee at it.

Most importantly, I think, will be the building of community in the game. MMORPGs have stopped forcing players to be interdependent and have made their worlds VERY safe for players. I think a lot of this has eroded immersion as well as community. You can now play most MMOs without interacting with anyone or asking anyone about anything.

I think transparency will be important during the kickstarter. Personally, I would like to hear some of Brad’s goals and expectations, as well as a well-developed plan and discussion about meeting those goals. Given experience, I don’t really trust Brad’s team to deliver, so I think transparency about their management and development processes will give myself and others more confidence and rally our support. Whoever he is working with, Brad needs to show his company has its act together and that it has learned from previous mistakes and WILL deliver what we’ve been asking for since 2005-2006.

Hopefully, there won’t be snakes that kick or killer boats.

I’ll post my kickstarter reaction when it happens.