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

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 :o

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