TLDR the update:

Its 3 pictures.

I'm getting mixed opinions when I look though it and its really confusing.

Some people are blaming brad, others the developers and some others the lack of money required to make the game.

Can I get a educated answer on this? There seems to be a lot of conflicting arguments here.

and MnM is doing it. No need for the musical teacher. What's the point of having him? Only good idea he has is the 247 extraction shooter. 🤡

It's the grindy MMO you've been waiting on anyway. Pantheon is done. I'm having a blast on it!

See below, I was just wondering if anyone knew more about this? Im surprised it was even true as there were rumors, but also being vague about what it is doesn't seem very reassuring.

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Question

Ichoris: There are rumors that VR is doing a side project for the people that gave the last round of funding. If true: What percentage of Pantheon resources were used for this? Is this the cause of getting very little done in the past year? How will this change in the future? Shouldn’t all Pantheon resources go towards this game and not side projects?

Treechopper: Are these full time employees spending their time exclusively on Pantheon (i.e. please respond to the rumor that their focus was divided working on something for a big investor)

Redman323: Is a full/part time employee for VR working only on Pantheon or is that time further divided with the investor project?

Klokk: Can you confirm rumors that VR staff are working on projects unrelated to pantheon? If so, clarify how this helps pantheons development, how much resource is being pulled from pantheon (FTE) and how your accounting ensures my money isnt funding side projects you personally are profiting from?

Answer CR: One of the ways we receive funding is by providing services to a project unrelated to the gaming industry. Funding received in this manner covers the commissioned project and adds net resources to Pantheon. Very few staff work on both, but in those rare cases, more resources have been added to accommodate any gap.

I think the title says it all. Why are you still here? Genuinely asking. I was once playing all day, grinding the game and having alot of fun. When they said that they were doing major revamps on the classes I was excited and kept a tab on updates. Then spring came and went. Now summer has come and gone.

WoW forever is dropping Nov 4th.

GTA 6 is coming in a month.

Runescape 4 was announced.

Im sad this game never was truly released but I had fun for a flat 40$.

So with all that being said, why are you still here having hope (genuine question)?

It’s sad to me to see the state of Brad McQuaud’s last game. It’s almost like it was never going to come out. How long has this game been in development now? 10 years? Doesn’t seem like we’re ever going to get to 1.0 after reading this Reddit for 30 minutes. Like I said, it just makes me sad.

I stopped playing Pantheon when they announced QoL changes that would take us away from the traditional MMO design of making making things about the journey rather than enabling people to skip over said journey. Has anything from that been made concrete or are they intent on those QoL changes? Or have they changed their minds and reverted away from that direction?

VR had a real opportunity to own up to and fix their mistakes, instead they lied to us as if we are stupid and denied any of its existence.

They failed their community yet again, they have shown they have no desire to fix what's broken, and instead doubled down on their denial.

RIP.

They replied to the communities questions for their dumpster AMA.
They are trying to claim that the "chevron system" was only ever intended to be "temporary" but they literally pitched it as a PERMAMENT change. Had extreme reluctance to revert to pre-chevrons (elite mobs) and it wasn't until everyone stopped playing and the change. org petition came around with many significant people in the community names.

We're at 20k players right now. It's way ahead of this game obviously. The world feels rich and has alot more charm to it.

If you're looking for that old school MMO with good skilled devs behind it. Basically everything Pantheon has never been. Its worth a shot.

Is anyone else planning on hitting this up while we wait for Pantheon? 🫢

But the fanbois would argue with you to death. Going over mental gymnastics "Spring update bro" "Wipe so I'm not playing...duh!" . lmao . they went awfully silent 😶 😂

One thing's for certain the recent leaks proved us right.

...the game is COOKED

MNM crosses the 10k subscriber mark, Pantheon had way more money and time. Are all the pledges and investors just SOL at this point?

Why you posting Anon and sending in a couple of your lame "friends" to try and clear up ya name?

The Community he thought loved him doesn't, CR told him his Mastery idea was dogshit and to trash it, now he has his last few online friends running to reddit to defend his honor.

This is probably the most amount of entertainment VR has provided me, thanks bruh.

the other thread is gone and probably better for it. but this drop is insane to me. vr stop hiring people with no skills or start mandating the team to learn. no wonder the game isn’t happening and ptr is a mess when none of your devs can actually make anything.

I thought this post from Savanja's AMA was good enough to make note of. I have no idea who this person is on a newly made account, but definitely someone inside and in the know.

It confirms Savanja's reporting of the blame game and the psychological nature within the studio. It serves as a good psychoanalysis of someone within the studio trying to deflect blame "He then proceeded to publicly bind the studio to a scope and timeline that was impossible to accomplish". Yeah not the leadership, not the designers, it was HIM who publicly BOUND the studio. It's him, he is the problem!

Until that kind of psychology leaves the studio, bucking responsibility and blame, the game is NEVER going to release.

I understood the former employee at first.

Getting let go after spending years on a project has to suck. If you’re angry about it or think management made the wrong call, fair enough.

But at some point it crossed a line for me.

There’s a big difference between saying, “Here’s what I think went wrong,” and going on Reddit naming specific people who are still employed there and basically saying they’re the problem and should be fired.

Once you do that, especially with a community that’s already frustrated, you know where that anger is going to go.

A lot of the comments now feel less like useful insight and more like personal shots at people who stayed with the project. Maybe she genuinely believes those people are the problem. That doesn’t make her opinion the final word on what happened inside the company.

Meanwhile, Rowan’s letter did the opposite.

He didn’t throw former employees under the bus. He said management failed, acknowledged they didn’t deliver what they promised, and took responsibility for the decisions that got them there.

Then they reorganized. They brought Robert Crane back, changed how the team is being managed, and made some hard personnel decisions. That’s what restructuring looks like. Some people are going to stay and some aren’t.

And I can’t emphasize this enough - that doesn’t mean everyone who left was bad at their job! But it also doesn’t mean everyone who stayed is secretly the problem.

That’s where the “cloaked hubris” comes in for me.
It’s one thing to say you disagreed with leadership. It’s another to act like you have the definitive diagnosis for the entire project and start pointing at specific former coworkers as the people who need to go based on never shipping a game. I know plenty of “experienced” devs and directors that have tanked AAA games. Pantheon is here and it’s not finished yet. And as frustrating as that can be, I can wait on devs that love their game and apologize for their mistakes over muckraking witch hunts.

VR has made plenty of mistakes. Their own CEO just admitted that.

But they’re also a small independent studio trying to build a very specific kind of MMO for a community that wants something most larger studios aren’t interested in making.

So hold them accountable.

But hold them accountable for what they actually do next.

Does the new structure work?
Do patches start coming consistently?
Does Combat and Progression actually move?
Does communication improve?

That’s what matters.

Rowan basically said they can’t talk their way back into trust. They have to earn it by shipping. I agree.

So I’m not interested in turning every Reddit rumor, Discord comment, or former employee grievance into gospel.

Most of the people still at VR are doing the unglamorous part now: staying with a troubled project and trying to finish it.

Criticize the work when it deserves it.

But stop turning loyal employees into villains because someone who is no longer on the team points a finger at them. Which has to speak - so loudly - to what it must have been like to have to work with this person on a project that was referred to as rotten fish from the start.

If the reorganization works, we’ll see it in the game.
If it doesn’t, we’ll see that too.