I feel your pain, but I expect that VR can't reveal too much of their game until it is closer to release. Those in pre-alpha are under NDA and those that will be in aplha and beta (although they have said not sure about beta) will be under an NDA. If they posted aplha-related or beta information here, we'd all have to sign an NDA and I don't think that's practical. Just my 2 coppers, I could be wrong.
I know being excited it's hard to have patience.
Im sure from a developer point of view they want to be careful what they show because alot of things could change.
We should find out alot more throughout 2018.
I have to agree with Dulu on this...this MMO is different than those past MMO's, because it's funded by us! We are technically investors in this MMO and for that reason we should be more in the loop, how can we help shape the game if updates are few and far between? But maybe I'm crazy.
Definitely frustrating. However, it's a very small team with very limited funds. While passionate about their project, they are molasses slow with development. When they actually show something, it's usually great. So, there is that. Nothing they can really do about speeding things up unless they get about 50 million and quadruple their team.
Mathir said:Definitely frustrating. However, it's a very small team with very limited funds. While passionate about their project, they are molasses slow with development. When they actually show something, it's usually great. So, there is that. Nothing they can really do about speeding things up unless they get about 50 million and quadruple their team.
All true, but as a small team with limited funds who are trying to raise more funds it seems counter intuative to me. Someone on the outside looking in and sitting on the fence about supporting the game isn't going to be motivated to do so when there is just silence. Not an easy puzzle to solve for sure.
The holidays are over. It is high time for the team to get down to working hard. They don't need to be wasting too much time on wetting my appetite with more fluff. Let them do their job I say. There will be plenty of time to drool over information later after they have created it. Right now is build time. Let 'em build it I say.
Klumpedge grabs a hammer and begins to cut stones into blocks...
If you're looking at this from an investor point of view, it's very worrying when a team that is based on crowd-funding, can't get public relations right.
We've had two newsletters with actualy game content in them, and not "meet the devs" type of articles in 12 calender months. Plus a few streams - which have been great.
But compared to other MMO's, this team has not communicated with it's base. And that's a tragic irony when you look at what Pantheon is supposed to be about.
Nobody should be looking at Pantheon from an "investor" point of view unless you have made arrangements with VR through this page: http://visionaryrealms.com/company/investors/
There are plenty of challenges associated with having a small team. Every single minute spent is valuable and must be evaluated in regards to efficiency. I totally understand the notion that players want more information, but it's important to remember that any effort spent divulging that information is taking time (the most precious resource for a small team) away from something else. Not only that, but there are plenty of risks when it comes to releasing information that isn't quite ready. They could provide details on how they want a certain feature to work and then realize during testing that it just isn't meant to be. By only releasing information when it's deemed to be ready, they allow players to better manage their expectations. Whenever you see a content drought, you can accredit that to the fact that VR has their heads down, completely focused on whatever milestone they are currently working on.
oneADseven said:Nobody should be looking at Pantheon from an "investor" point of view unless you have made arrangements with VR through this page: http://visionaryrealms.com/company/investors/
There are plenty of challenges associated with having a small team. Every single minute spent is valuable and must be evaluated in regards to efficiency. I totally understand the notion that players want more information, but it's important to remember that any effort spent divulging that information is taking time (the most precious resource for a small team) away from something else. Not only that, but there are plenty of risks when it comes to releasing information that isn't quite ready. They could provide details on how they want a certain feature to work and then realize during testing that it just isn't meant to be. By only releasing information when it's deemed to be ready, they allow players to better manage their expectations. Whenever you see a content drought, you can accredit that to the fact that VR has their heads down, completely focused on whatever milestone they are currently working on.
They have PR and CSR staff. People who's only job is to reach out to the community.
Like I said, I've been through probably a dozen big MMO launches. This is the worst public relations I've ever seen.
Normally at this phase of development in a traditionally funded game there would be zero news, but maybe some developer forum feedback like we have here. I'm thankful for the monthly newsletters, and streams.
I was a Vanguard forum faithful from the time Sigil launched, well before they announced the game. The VG alpha screenshot leak that came out was like a huge moment. A single screenshot. It was hard to deal with for all those years, so again, I'm thankful for the newsletters and streams.
Also understand that some of what we've been shown is bleeding edge in the game. It takes time to put in new features before having something new to show. Brad has also said that they are working on the next stream.
Nevermind, I am going to bow out of the conversation.
Dulu said:I've followed a lot of MMO's closely in the past 18 years or so, and this has been one of the slowest drips of digestible content I've ever seen.
Can you please feed your starving fanbase who clicks your site daily, and wants more information? Please!!!
Thank you.
You could not be more wrong. You have never in the history of gaming had more access to the content and info about a game so far before release. The irony is ridiculous. Name an MMO that had 12 hours of pre-pre alpha footage live streamed before. Go on, name it.
Dulu, you joined the forums on Oct 28th, 2017, 3 months ago and right as we went into pre-alpha testing, TwitchCon and other various events/milestones. Make sure you subscribe to the monthly newsletter and follow us on all of our official social media platforms for the latest news.
If you want extra information, you can up your support to a CHampion or VIP for extra dev interactions and information, roundtables etc. but right now as we prepare for the second round of pre-alpha, information will be slow as it is under a full NDA and EULA, most of our attention has shifted to the testing phase and our pre-alpha forums where we are sifting through thousands of in-game and out of game bug reports and feedback.
I am going to go ahead and close this thread down as this has already been discussed and explain at length in other threads, in future please use the search function before creating a new thread, keeping in mind these are our official development forums and that there are special guidelines and rules to follow.