Although the PvE MMORPG Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is still in the pre-alpha phase, many players are disappointed with the title. Pantheon was supposed to be a classic old-school MMORPG like Everquest, but even in pre-alpha, its monetization has upset some players.
What is the problem? To get a taste of the pre-alpha phase, players must pay a lot of money. Every 6 weeks there is a new season in the pre-alpha, which comes with significant updates. To experience the seasons, players must pay at least the following amounts:
- 1 week: 50 US dollars
- 2 weeks: 250 US dollars
- 6 weeks: 750 US dollars
So anyone who wants to experience the entire pre-alpha phase with all its updates must pay 750 US dollars every 6 weeks. There is even the option to purchase even more expensive packages.
Already at the announcement, there were numerous biting comments. Now players have come together in a reddit thread and even declare the game dead, even though it hasn’t even been released yet.
In the following trailer, you can get an idea of what Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen actually is:
“They are not making the MMORPG they promised anymore”
In the reddit thread, players express their anger over the monetization. User Coolboyman feels that it no longer looks like the development team is creating the MMORPG that they promised at the beginning.
And indeed: the mind behind Pantheon, Brad McQuaid, passed away suddenly in 2019. He was responsible for games like Everquest and Vanguard, and the vision behind Pantheon originates from him. Fans get the impression in the comments that development has not continued in the way McQuaid would have wanted after his death.
Other users are even harsher in their judgment of Pantheon:
- R4zorCRO: “The game is dead before it was even released.”
- MouthBreatherGaming: “I don’t know Pantheon, but every time I see ‘Seasons’ now, I almost feel sick because that only means to me that a company is bringing out a shell of a game to see if people will bite at the cash shop, and if not, they give up and move on after investing as little as possible beforehand.”
- saggonauntlyh84: “Well, that’s disappointing. I was really hoping to have an engaging MMORPG experience and not a cash grab like every other game out there. It’s time to find a new game that I can be obsessed with.”
However, there are also advocates of the pricing model: One user writes that the development team only calls the testing phase a season. It would only mean that they are setting up something like a roadmap during the testing phase.
Therefore, he thinks that the headline of the reddit thread is misleading. The developers are not discontinuing the MMORPG and switching to a season-based genre. The monetization may seem strange, but it shouldn’t be a big deal for fans.
Pantheon has already attracted resentment in the past when it wanted to improve the graphics: The hope for fans of PvE MMORPGs says magical words that everyone wants to hear: better graphics
