Summer is in full swing and we get to spend some time reading the latest newsletter! July's newsletter gives us some time with one of Pantheon's programmers, Jason Weimann while he takes time to answer some questions about what he has been up to
There are a few key parts of Pantheon I’ve been working on since joining the team in November. The first is tooling; I’ve spent a lot of my time working on building tools for the game-design team to create the content you see in-game - in fact, for the last few days, I’ve been working on a new dialog editor so our quest designers can create interesting dialogues and conversations easily.
In another installment of the Rogues Gallery, we get to learn details about the Giants of Terminus! I recall back in my Everquest days, how much I feared the Hill Giants who liked to stomp about the lands and the horror I felt while meditating in West Karana (when the screen was fully obscured by your spell book) and I suddenly heard the crashing sounds of an approaching giant (often resulting in my squishy demise). It's a great read, full of the backstory of these massive beings who no doubt will ruin many an adventurer's day!
Lastly, Chris 'Joppa' Perkins gives us some behind the scenes in the latest installment of 'Underwraps'. He discusses some of his experiences around the design of healer classes (Cleric, Druid and Shaman). Also of interest is mention of the next three class reveals (Wizard, Enchanter and Summoner which will be discussed in August!) and hints about future details around the Necromancer and Bard. (Personally, I am very excited about Enchanters as it was my main class on EQ for years.. along with my monk).
We also get to see a little bit of what goes into the world building process using what he calls draw-overs.
The process is rather simple: we meet internally to discuss the overall vision for a zone - what NPCs will you encounter here? What are the points of interest? How should this zone feel to the player - what kind of mood? What do we want the player’s experience to be like as they explore this zone? We work through all of these design and philosophical paradigms together.
Before and After showing the draw-over planning..
There's also an early look at some Orc-themed architecture which Jerry Kuklis recently finished. I can't wait to do battle here! I can already imagine the pulls and and hear the sounds of battle as we lay siege to the Orc outpost.
Lastly, a quick summary of how the player character models are coming along. They are looking pretty great and I can't wait to see them running around the lands of Terminus!
We have finished the modeling and texturing process for 6 of the 9 playable Races Pantheon will launch with, including the male and female variations of each. Here is the current list of finished models: the Humans, the Halflings, the Elves (both Ember and Ashen variations), the Dwarves, the Gnomes and the Ogres - exciting indeed!
