They have brought in millions in revenue over the last 8 years and never released anything. Frankly the DOJ should be investigating these companies for the scams they are.
Here's a video I made a few years back when they were still touting the climbing system as one of their main selling points. I -believe- they have shifted towards something more freeform similar to Breath of the Wild but doubt it is still as revolutionary as they want us to believe. If the Western MMORPG market wasn't as dry as it is Pantheon wouldn't even be on anyone's radar.
It's a sad state of affairs when another company is making the spiritual successor to EverQuest. At least the Pantheon guys are out there and they're trying to do something. Why isn't Darkpaw Games making a new version of EverQuest?
Nope, they will be playing EQ even if an EQ3 dropped tomorrow with Unreal 5 Graphics. Why? They've become attached to everything EQ has become to them, not just their guild, friendships but also their characters and all the myriad things associated with it. EQ has "stickiness" for many reasons. Most of the denial is out of plain ignorance & a generalised lack of faith in anything that began its lumbering plod towards release with a failed Kickstarter. Is Pantheon development slow? Yes it is, it didn't have a conventional beginning, hasn't had a conventional devlopment cycle & people are highly dubious about things like that because of how many MMO fail during development & never even make it to launch, the few that make it to launch are also high-risk on surviving launch too. MMO are crazy-risky in general and the more you deviate from EQ/WoW/FFXIV clone the harder it gets to judge the survival rate so the expectations crash into discussions about vaporware. People love to trot the Duke-Nukem example but the games are nothing alike apart from lengthy development times. Oh & "Feature-Creep" is an actual feature of Star Citizen, it's partly what fuels the insanity of how much money that game has wasted.
We don't want a 'new version of everquest', we like the current version. Many of us have decades invested in our characters, noone want's to throw that away for the "latest and greatest shiny thing".
even 5 years ago, I still held out hope for Pantheon.. that hope has dried up and blown away like the sands of the Sahara at this point.
Im not really looking for a new mmo either, I like EQ1. I do however hope that EQ1 will see further improvements in the years to come, I want that much more than a potential EQ3. EQ1 already works, already has a loyal userbase, is already famous for defining a genre. Personally i would think it would be a "low-risk" investment to give it a technological overhaul. Compare that to a new mmo, which has no users to start with, and only unproven hype. A new mmo is a financial gamble, EQ1 has already proven itself... At worst it would just keep its current userbase. At best it could be a genuine success in the mmo-scene. They just need to make it modern and polished, and keeping it away from being Pay2win. There is a real market for quality mmos, that are not pay2win. However EQ1 needs a technological update to look and feel like a quality mmo for the next generation... They have even "solved" the problem of being "top-heavy", with the endless TLP-cycles. You can always find a server where you are not too far behind. DBG can choose to invest in EQ1, in such a way that they will attract new players in the future...
I've played EQ since early 2000, if I ever quit it won't be because I bailed to go to another MMORPG it'd be because I'm done with the genre entirely
Besides, there was a "new version of EQ" that was released in 2004 with the latest and greatest graphics available during its development and it's still going today with a lower population than the original EQ. When it was first announced at an EQ Fan Faire (I forget which one, but I was there), the forums were buzzing with how it would be the EQ killer. A chunk of the population did move over to it (myself included, though I left EQ a bit more than a year before), but EQ is still going strong and even has had returning players and completely new players. Even a competitor game declared as an EQ-killer released shortly after and another a few years later and another and another all declared EQ-killers didn't or we would have just had an expansion launched a bit over a week ago. I will admit, though, over the many many years I have been playing SOE to Daybreak games and a few other companies games, I really wish that Sony had invested in more and better advertising for their games. I still wish that Daybreak had the money to invest in advertising as well, but the games do pretty good for the minimal outside adverts over the decades. As for Pantheon, in my opinion, the best thing it has going for it is the Brad-fan-boi-ism that also bolstered Vanguard long before it (and which also gaslights the condition of that game when Brad shut the doors and disappeared when it wasn't nearly as done as advertised but had a launch date looming). Pantheon has been in "development" so long that I actually forgot all about it's original Kickstarter and attempts to get off the ground. I'm glad to hear it has new investment and hope they can make something of the shambles that was left. I really hope it doesn't go the way of 38 Studios and end up in the same types of courts.
That may be the issue for the projects but that doesn't mean that it hasn't been tried and failed in the past.
Just imaging if all the money the various owners have wasted trying to make the 'next great thing' had instead been reinvested into great thing they already had ?
I understand where you are coming from. These forums are like the bar Cheers and everyone has their favorite barstool. Everyone is fully invested in their characters and doesn't want to see anything change. I get it. However, technology has vastly improved over the years and from my point of view it would be nice to see as modern version of EQ that would bring in fresh blood to the community. People who want to see a new version of EQ have no where to go or post their thoughts, hopes, and dreams for a new EQ other than these forums.
