MMORPG.com has shared a great interview with Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen's Creative Director, Chris "Joppa" Perkins, and VR CEO, Chris Rowan. Gabriel Moss shares his in-game experience and talks with VR about where Pantheon started and where it is going:
I’ve already had a chance to go hands-on with the same version of Pantheon that’s currently available to Champion and VIP-tier backers, and its tactical gameplay engaged me as someone who grew up playing RPGs of all varieties, including classic EverQuest (which is now enjoying its 25th anniversary). Even with the light amount of content available in Pantheon’s sole zone of Avendyr’s Pass as of Chapter 1, Season 1; Pantheon’s brutal combat, minimal guidance, and heavy focus on class role symbiosis made other players feel like necessary allies in a genuinely enjoyable fight for my life.Give it a read on MMORPG.com!
Overall, an enjoyable read and a net positive for Pantheon. It should bring new eyes or cautious ones closer to making a commitment with Pantheon. And that is good for VR, Pantheon, and the community.
I was not pleased with the way the 24/7 extraction mode was painted as being so valuable and Seasons is a second-rate offering to satisfy longtime fans.
I’m going to believe that VR needed the 24/7 disaster to put Pantheon on a clearer and more motivational path to release that Seasons will bring. We all make mistakes. Learning and growing from them is what is important.
Thank you everyone at VR for all your hard work. I appreciate you!
“[247] was largely my idea. And I think it could have been really, really good,” Perkins tells me point-blank. “I'm actually kind of bummed that we don't still have it.”
It's a good thing we don't still have it. It was the community writ large telling you otherwise. Now you have a development process that produces content and not an extraction mode.
“Developmentally, it was extremely valuable. And I think that's something that gets understated. It was extremely valuable for us with, you know, small slices of content to make them much more replayable."
Except you are doing it now without the extraction mode. So it wasn't that valuable.
“I mean, we knew that the initial reception was going to be pretty rough. But our hope was that it would be able to weather long enough where we could extend [Pantheon] to more people,” Perkins explains."
Of course that was clear to everyone you were trying to extend the game to a "modern audience", instead of producing the game you promised originally. How bizarre, "weather long enough". How tone deaf does a company need to be to think they can "weather" people who have been waiting almost a decade for a game to be produced? The echo chamber at VR must have been going on for too long.
“The past year has been an exercise in really – and almost kind of ruthlessly, to be honest – buckling down and just getting gritty on getting stuff done. And it's paying dividends in a big way. Reliable, consistent production pipelines.”
Turns out producing content consistently, creating timelines for production, maintaining community feedback by allowing people to engage with the content is a positive thing.
"But exactly how many Seasons would it take for Pantheon to become ready to leave its backers-only closed alpha, let alone release commercially to the public?"
Fantastic question. And never answered by VR. If you are in "seasons" for another 10 years, what is the point? Which goes to back an earlier question asked by him. "how do they plan to rebuild trust and, crucially, reach potential new backers through the mire of all that controversy?" The quickest way would show people you have a plan to get from Point A (now) to Point B (release).
"The team also assures me that Pantheon’s lighting engine is set to receive a major upgrade when Season 2 rolls out on March 30, "
Looking forward to that. The screenshots DO look better with the improved lightning engine. I am not a complete hater.
"its developers are confident that they’ve locked down the planning and processes needed to deliver the exact experience promised so many years ago."
Exactly. I mean you might actually get more funding too if you go to someone with a plan and process to deliver a final game.
Honestly, Zaide's interview was 100x better than this. Much better questions, imho
I understand that outlets like MMORPG provide a larger reach to the game, but man, these "journalists" just don't ask good questions.
Perhaps you should explore more content creators that REALLY care about these types of mmorpgs AND have a large reach.