Standing In Fire – Pantheon Edition: Episode 4

In which Tess, Militus, and Boom discuss Pantheon hopes, gaming Moments of Zen, and community posts with special guest NATHAN NAPALM!!

Join us and call in at 702-625-1337 or tweet us @sifpodcast!

Intro

Contact Us (Tess)

Website:  stopstandinginfire.com

Email:  stopstandinginfire@gmail.com

Twitter:  Reach out to us as a show @sifpodcast, Boom at @boomtaplive, Militus @OldMilitus, or Tess

@DebuffThis

Phone: (Tess Jingle)

Phone Call and Texts

We have one phone call.  Should be a good one.

QUICK NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT:

BazgrimTV‏ @BazgrimTV

Just a friendly reminder that the @PantheonMMOnewsletter will not be released today as it is now being released on the 3rd Wednesday of each month instead of the 2nd. So the next one will be a week from today, the 20th #MMORPG#TrustInPantheon

So, next week we will be talking the newsletter! 🙂

Segment 1: Nathan Napalm interview

Questions:

What is the story behind your epic intro to each video?
Is that you and your wife singing at the end of each video? I love it! – Miltus

Of ALL your videos, which ONE would you point someone considering Pantheon to and why?

What race are you leaning toward in Pantheon? What Class? Why?

Where can people find your content or interact with your show?

Segment 2: Moments of Zen – How did we spend our time gaming this week?

Tess – Played like 5 Minutes in Vangurad. I played D&D as usual and tried out “legacy” board games. The one I wanted to try was Betrayal Legacy, but instead I tried Gloomhaven. The “legacy” style board game game is interesting and fun, but would you guys shell out $60 for a “single use” board game?

Nathan –

Militus – Vanguard to the MAX! Bahaha. I raided in Wow on Tuesday, and honestly, it felt like someone had punched me in the nuts the entire time after hearing about the layoffs. I think I am just going to take my 15 bucks and give it to Visionary Realms instead of subbing to WoW. I no longer believe in huge, corporate publishers. I think I will be backing niche, indie games from here on out.

Boom – Tess doesn’t talk to us anymore except on Wednesdays.  Vanguard play was the highlight of my week playing with 8-9 people was a hoot on Sunday.  And then I made level 40 in Tera. You can only pick girls as gunnar class and so I made mine look exactly like my wife only some of the physical attributes are enhanced, as they are in that game.  But now when my wife watches me play Tera she can’t tease me because it is her.

Segment 3: REDDIT / Forums

$5 forum access? Posted by ak74907

Why would they charge $5 for forum access? Wouldn’t they want people on the forums fostering community?

Pantheon Forums
Any updates on if next phase? By Deathwish
is going to be another pre Alpha being rolled out or it will be Alpha next?   Any word on an estimated date when either may be planned?

Jonesing for  a new gameplay stream after November,  this silence is killing me.

https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/10074/any-updates-on-if-next-phase/view/post_id/193174

Several posts discussed the concept of ‘Take your time and get it right…”

But also…

“reminds me of something i heard when i was in the military:  take your time. you only get one shot, but if you take too long you’ll miss the only shot you’ll get.” – stellarmind

“Don’t go full Blizzard, nobody goes full Blizzard”  – Boomtap

Others stated they expect 2019 to be entirely pre-alpha and up to PA8-10ish. Yikes. 🙁
What are our thoughts about these competing positions regarding alpha release?

Boom – Get the game moving in 2019.  With the big guy down for the count the time to move is now before companies regroup and come in like a MMO hurricane.  

Segment 4: Getting Soft with the Community

Nathan Napalm talks server rules (server pop, rule sets, server tech, balancing, ect.) MOAR REALMS! 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=71&v=b0zXBNjMjiQ

Nathan Naplam helps train us to become DPS GODS… as Dr. Dre! Nice rap, man! The unicorn mount..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvWCmaMmm8w

Battle Axe Theatre – Community Love!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5SCSZYcPL8&t=213s

Chris Kane – (The Seed and the Wyrm) (Mila has a great idea about Chris’s work)

Pantheon.Plus (Minus and some scrub talk Warrior)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQRQ82mcirQ&t=169s

Joe Leonard breaks down Druid and compares to classic EQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU4rXFss4O0

Voices of Terminus had Minus on their podcast last week and Leksur was in a great mood! 🙂

Shout Outs

To all the people shit canned from Blizzard.  Sorry to all of you, that sucks so much.

Tess: Shout out to all my Pantheon Gaming Ladies! I love seeing all you lending your voice to the growth of this community!

Support us by giving us a follow and sub on Twitch!
– https://www.twitch.tv/standinginfirepodcast
Reach out to us as a show @sifpodcast, Boom at @boomtaplive, Militus @OldMilitus, or Tess @DebuffThis

End of show Credits

Jeremy W  www.oak-production.com

Standing In Fire – Pantheon Edition: Episode 2

In which Tess, Militus, and Boom discuss ….

Join us and call in at 702-625-1337 or tweet us @sifpodcast!

Week 1 Community Question results (Which race?): 1. Halfling, 2. Archai, 3. Elf.

Week 2 Community Question: If you had to play a HEALING class, which would you find most intriguing in Pantheon:Rise of the Fallen? http://www.strawpoll.me/17335930

National Inane Answering Message Day

Intro

Contact Us (Tess)

Website:  stopstandinginfire.com

Email:  stopstandinginfire@gmail.com

Twitter:  @sifpodcast

Phone: (Tess Jingle)

Segment 1: Factions in Pantehon

1. Factions/Alignment from the Wiki: https://pantheonriseofthefallen.gamepedia.com/Faction

Factions are a measure of how others in the game world will view your character. These will run the spectrum between an NPC considering you as an ally to NPCs who will Kill you on sight (KOS). They will be important in Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen. Races will have specific factions at creation and evil races such as the Ogre, Skar, and Dark Myr will have a hard time getting close to good race cities. This is not set in stone, however, as you can adjust your faction and alignment through your actions in the game world; you could betray your home or default factions.

Tess–I love this. Talk about open-ended gameplay. 4 talking points:

• Alignment is different from faction, though. Alignment is like going dark or light side in SWtOR. Faction is going Horde or Alliance. So imagine playing a super evil human warlock who decides to toss the finger at the Alliance and joining Sylvanas’ army, or playing a highly-moral Tauren druid who defects to Ironforge after the burning of Darnassus.
• What would REALLY make this game fun is the ability to change faction after a big upheaval event LIKE the burning of Darnassus. You play one faction for years and then they do something that you really don’t agree with and BAM, you can defect.
• Also a note on alignment: in D&D, Fable, and SWtOR, alignment CAN dictate what gear you can use or even what spells/abilities can do to you.
• I think this is great fun, because you may not be able to tell if an NPC or PC is evil or good. Some classes will probably have tools to tell, but not all. How cool would it be to pick up a quest not knowing you’re being duped into doing something terrible by the NPC??  

Segment 2:

Age of Seclusion Simplified:

Very simple because I didn’t do it.

Segment 3: MILITUS REDDIT / Forums

Do people want a Pure Archer class in an MMO? Or am I on my own here? By SkeletonJack on Reddit

For years now I’ve wanted an archer class in an MMO. But I never see one. Rangers in EQ are like that now, but they were originally a melee class, that eventually got moments of being an archer, and then eventually now in Live are actually an archer class. But it missed the mark for me years ago because it was a melee class then.

I didn’t want to play a Hunter in WoW because it was a pet class. So when GW2 rolled around I went to Ranger, but was ultimately disenfranchised with it being a pet class and swapped to a Warrior so I could go primary Rifle, which was still sub-optimal for most of GW2. In DAoC even though I was a Ranger, I always had to swap over to melee when mobs closed on me…

I’m sure there’s some MMO out there that had an Archer class and I missed it. I’m just always confused as to why games never want to go down with a physical ranged DPS class while offering multiple spell casting options. I’m not against the idea of other things being tacked on like an Arcane Archer (D&D) or a Demon Hunter (Diablo 3), the theme/fantasy is largely unimportant to me. I just want to be shooting some people from range with a bow without a pet or being forced into melee combat. Hell, I’d even use a rifle if I must since that’s become a popular cross fantasy trope now.

So does anyone have any thoughts as to why ranged physical classes don’t make it into MMO’s without having an added/forced niche added on to them?Hunters in WoW have pets. Rangers in Pantheon are melee/ranged hybrids. Rangers in DAoC were ranged, but forced melee in close range. Rangers in GW2 are pet classes. And so on…

Poll:Do you want a Pure Archer class in MMO’s?

Tess–ESO (nightblade), SWtoR (smuggler/imperial agents), and GW2 theif>elite spec of deadeye (i don’t think it’s fair to include gw2 in this as elite specs COMPLETELY change playstyle and ranger is not the ranged dps-non-pet) have all done this. I’m sure there is a way, to,, but as an original wow hunter…. Why again? Wow hunter morphed away from beast so you could do the whole sniper thing, but leveling non-BM is hard. I’d like the option to level or solo with a pet and then go snipe in a group

Pantheon Form Post  by Nephele
Crafter’s Roundtable: Limits on Selling Items

We don’t know how buying and selling will work in Pantheon yet, but the team has said that they are leaning towards the concept of regional markets, as well as allowing players a method to sell while offline.  Today’s question is around what limits should be in place in the eventual system. Limits are potentially important to help insure that people with extreme amounts of time to spend in game aren’t able to monopolize the market and drive out other players who might want to participate.   Should sellers be limited in the number of items they can put up for sale at one time, or should the price of those items be capped in some way? Should sellers be able to travel and post items for sale in different regions, or should they be restricted to just one? What limits make sense and what would feel too restrictive?
http://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/9944/crafter-s-roundtable-limits-on-selling-items/view/post_id/191917

Segment 4: Community Matters

Visionary Realms Tweet: Pantheon‏ @PantheonMMO Jan 24

What has been your characters biggest downfall or fail in any MMORPG you have played? #MMORPG #communitymatters

Militus: My biggest downfall has been letting my friends down by lacking leadership from my character in guild decisions that led to splits of the guild and/or complete losses of friendships that should have endured BEYOND any one MMO.
Boom:

Tess:

We love the Pantheon community! What content caught our eye this past week?

Nathan Napalm discusses raid mechanics based on Dev comments from Twitchcon 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9TWfV2Yd8U
Mobs will react to try and zerging bosses (open world). Boss might call adds, boss might just peace out and leave.
Atmosphere system (rain could augment abilities like lightning abilities)
Mechanics to lock groups into content, like doors closing, but NO INSTANCES.

Monk video from Fragile! It is cool, I learned a lot.

Koltrane/Boom Voice over Throw Down – Battle of the Archai

Shout Outs

Support us by giving us a follow and sub on Twitch!
– https://www.twitch.tv/standinginfirepodcast
Reach out to us as a show @sifpodcast, Boom at @boomtaplive, Militus @OldMilitus, or Tess @DebuffThis

End of show Credits

Jeremy W  www.oak-production.com

Standing In Fire – Pantheon Edition: E1 – Welcome to the community!

In which Tess, Militus, and Boom discuss Pantheon lore and news!

Join us and call in at 702-625-1337 or tweet us @sifpodcast!

Week 1 Community Question: http://www.strawpoll.me/17291971

Intro

Contact Us (Tess)

Website:  stopstandinginfire.com

Email:  stopstandinginfire@gmail.com

Twitter:  @sifpodcast

Phone: (Tess Jingle)

Segment 1: Who we are and Why we are making this show!

Why the title, “Standing in Fire” – Well, we believe in having fun in MMOs. Community and relationships are key principles to us as gamers. That being said, if you were to run a dungeon with us, there is a distinct chance after the first few cocktails, that you would observe us laughing & having a good time and that one of us would indeed be standing in the fire. Bahaha.

Our show is about having fun, building the Pantheon community, sharing news, and spreading the word about the amazing game!  

Introduction to Pantheon

Quick Overview of Game Tennants : https://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/game_tenets/

Quick Minute of Background about the World:

Terminus used to be called Nhystyrrok and at some point Aevozul. (Rok’Nhilthamos made an agreement with an unknown power to create the Dragon Accord and rename Aevozul to Terminus.)

The Reignborn are dragons that controlled Terminus until a beast (maybe not a dragon) killed off most of the dragons of air and sea.

Terminus has a secret that nobody knows, but everybody seems to be searching for.

The Sacred Six were ripped from their native realms and brought to Terminus by an unknown force. The six races are not the only races on Terminus, but are the ones that were brought to the planet this way.

Some of the Terminus natives are the Tholen and the Elvonnen Giants. The Tholen created the calendar IH.

There is a cult of dragon seekers “The Sect of Perth” that are searching for the dragons that left when the Reignborn chilled out a while back. Most of those dragons are thought to be in a deep sleep that can last centuries.

Potential Release, predicted release, Pre-Alpha/Alpha/Beta information

How you can support the game:  https://www.pantheonmmo.com/join/

Check out this from Saerain on Reddit:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QIcSmo4GhcWMOBjfNdb8Lcyea6KJHve-zqZbgt2v_rU/edit

Document outlines all the happenings in the lore very concise.  It will be posted in the show notes.

Segment 2: News/Topic

• Story 1. Pantheon January Newsletter is up! https://pantheonmmo.com/newsletter/2019_january_intro/
  • Q&A with Ross Armstrong (new lead animator). Ross drops the statement that, “our intention is to have race specific animations,” but also states in the interview that “Pantheon has an aggressive production schedule and there’s a ton of animation assets to create” when asked about the biggest challenge? Thoughts”
    • Militus – on one hand, I am excited about the diversity, but I am honestly surprised. I guess with Pantheon being crowdfunded, this would be on the back burner.
    • Tess – I have a feeling that there will be some things like race/ability animations they may not have ready for official launch, and that’s ok by me.
    • Boom – First of all Ross worked on Marvel Heroes as Lead Animator which is an amazing game.  So I feel that Pantheon is in good hands. Animation is a lot of work. And for them to have race specific is great, but I prefer that the classes operate in an engaging way over having the races having slight changes. A good game can be text based.  
      • Ross used the word “Feel Right” a couple of times and I think that is the most important aspect.  I remember playing Wildstar early on and the animations felt disconnected from the environment (still think they are a little that way).  I care less about how they move and more about how it feels.
• Story 2. Visionary Realms is hiring a Visual Effects Artist, Web Developer, Designer Development Operations Engineer https://twitter.com/PantheonMMO/status/1085957872440262658
  • Tess–Love to see they are hiring and expanding when other companies are downsizing
• Story 3.  Chris Kane releases AMAZING voice over discussing the halflings race in Pantheon!
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U5RZHCe4nY&t=

Segment 3: MILITUS REDDIT / Forums

1. REDDIT: Playing a social MMO without voice chat?. Posted by mitaya

Everything about this game sounds awesome to me and I’m ready to pledge. There’s just one thing that I want to ask the community before I do. I do have APD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_processing_disorder) and listening to any voice chat is very stressful to me. So I try to play games that can be played without it most of the time (the occasional raid with voice chat is fine). PUG groups with voice chat or guilds mostly talking there would not be fun to me. Disabling it ingame is not a solution because I really like the social part of MMO’s and love to talk in guild chats and even PUGs. It’s the big thing about MMO’s for me. Do you people think I would mostly feel left out in this game? Especially regarding PUGs. (I think I may be able to find a guild with people committed to text chat because I read all the posts in the forums about the voice/text chat topic and saw there’s quite a bunch of people who don’t like voice chat at all. So I could try to join a guild with them). So yeh… PUG play is what this question is mostly about. I don’t wanna feel left out there 😮

Opinions?

2. Pantheon Forums: Should Bards do damage? By Barin999

Singing songs and playing instruments is something that happens in an area of effect or within a certain range. So for me, bards would hardly have any single target abilities within the lyrical or instrumental range. Songs and other music is hardly damaging, unless it’s played extremely loud. So, I’ll grant them that one type. To me, it can boost ‘moral’ and abilities of others or debuff foes in similar fashion. With this type of damage, possibly being mental damage, should Pantheon open up this damage type or not at all? Buffs influencing the group, is something again affecting all within range. Should bards be able to buff a single target? How would you explain that?  Debuffs have the same issue. One sing or play a demoralizing tune, but it would impact all mobs within range (even beyond the linked mobs in that group). I could see how a charm or lullaby could impact a single foe, but still. If single damage is hardly possible using this style of abilities. Perhaps bards would have other tools/means to damage foes. Such as a ranged weapon or melee weapons. https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/9945/should-bards-do-damage

Tess–Ok, guys, hold my beer. First, understand that when we talk some of these classes, I will be examining them through the lens of D&D. Based on some of the alignment/perception systems they allude to, I think that looking at some D&D influence isn’t crazy, but Wizards is not (as far as I’m aware) involved with Pantheon, so there will assuredly be changes to the system to avoid copyright infringement.

Bards are magic users, like a wizard or a cleric. The difference is instead of a wand or a prayer book, their arcane focus is an instrument. So once you put aside the “realism” of some guy playing a flute and making someone’s head explode, life gets much easier. It’s not real, it’s not physics, it’s magic. And magic cheats. Bard Extraordinaire didn’t just play a flute and the sound made some guy’s head explode, Bard Extraordinaire cast a spell through the flute. But if you want to think more realism we can try. If you look at the four damage-dealing spells for a 1st level D&D bard, two are AOE (like you play a metal power chord on your lyre and cause an earthquake), and two are single-target psychic damage spells (like a frontman wagging his eyebrows at some groupie in the front row and she faints). The buffs and defuffs work similarly, as does D&D bards’ class specialty, cutting words and bardic inspiration. Cutting Words is like an interrupt in video games: Mr. Baddie swings at someone, Bard Extrordinaire distracts him with a perfectly timed arpeggio or wailed money note, and Mr. Baddie might miss. Bardic Inspiration works like a one-use buff for something crazy important: Ms. Party Member is about to do something very hard, Bard Extrordinaire gives her a thumbs up and shouts, “You can do it!”, and Ms. Party Member thinks, “Wow, if someone as cool as Bard Extraordinaire thinks I can do it, I bet I can!” and has a higher chance of succeeding. So the answer for this is “Yes, Bards should be able to do all kinds of damage, and also single target because, in the end, bards are the coolest. Oh, and magic.”

Speaking of Bards, they are listed as a “stretch goal” addition, but I couldn’t find anything that spoke of the likelihood of that stretch. Is it a time thing? A money thing? Any ideas?

Segment 4: Community Matters

We love the Pantheon community! What content caught our eye this past week?

• PantheonPlus guys breakdown the enchanter!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1142&v=4APMVnZAz8A
• Bazgrim introduces a new format: BazFlash! https://twitter.com/BazgrimTV/status/1085701995200241664
• Joe Leonard Claps Back at Asmongold trashing Pantheon on stream:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQXwExHYPGQ&t=1050s

Shout Outs

Militus – Shout out to Joe Leonard in his video for using the term and concept of cognitive dissonance! You rock man! Also, to Mojorizen ty for the friend request on the forums.

Support us by giving us a follow and sub on Twitch!
– https://www.twitch.tv/standinginfirepodcast
Reach out to us as a show @sifpodcast, Boom at @boomtaplive, Militus @OldMilitus, or Tess @DebuffThis

End of show Credits

Jeremy W  www.oak-production.com