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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Feb 24, 2015 13:27:12 GMT
Man. This campaign is really heavy on the Game of Thrones shit. It is in the title, in the marketing media even at the most base way right in the title of the game.
Again, this all sounded not too bad right up until the part where they said "the player controls the world, PvP rules" bla bla bla fuck you. You would assume they would have to have a number of official "worlds" aka shards I suppose.
Why isn't anyone making any proper MMOs?
Also in the current concept videos, this looks like a WoW clone, save for the destructible "voxels like Minecraft." Oh shit, more people pushing Minecraft trash, great.
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Post by kb on Feb 24, 2015 14:34:28 GMT
The KS has only been live for a little over an hour and they are already past $125k (over 1/8 of the way to their goal).
Instead of "Game of Thrones meets Eve Online", it looks more like WoW + Minecraft + a simplified CSK2 type strategy game/land-holding/lineage system...
I thought it was interesting in the pitch video (around 7:33), they start discussing funding. They mention external sources of funding, and kicking in their own money, and then mention that they're not really wealthy like those kinds of game designers/producers who sell their companies for millions of dollars. Maybe a dig at RG/Portalarium and/or Peter Molyneux.
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Feb 24, 2015 20:55:00 GMT
365,972k now.
I am not sure what the attraction here is? Everyone dreams of having their own world which becomes popular? May have to look more into it.
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Post by kb on Feb 25, 2015 2:51:03 GMT
$443k now. I guess there are still a lot of people out there yet who aren't totally jaded about KS and crowd-funded anything.
...
Anyway, the worlds decay over time, so I guess people will go to them more like a swarm, harvesting and fighting for what is there and then moving on to the next world after the current one has been exhausted.
Players won't know much about these worlds until they've been explored because there will always be new worlds being created and old worlds being exhausted/destroyed.
Each new world will be procedurally generated. There will be some things that players know will be there (cities, dungeons, resources to gather), but the specifics of who, where, and what won't be certain until people actually go out and look.
This kind of reset+fog of war (and using procedurally generated worlds to create a "new" experience each time) does remind me of Civ and even "rogue" type game (like FTL). In those games, there are always certain things about the game and map that you can count on, but the constantly changing nature of the playing field adds a lot to the replay value and difficulty.
Apparently, each of these worlds are going to have different attributes too (like in some worlds, magic will be OP, while in others it is severely gimped)... Some will even be race locked, if I understand correctly.
Anyway, yeah... they fully intend players to be persistent (along with instanced housing of some type), but game worlds will be temporary/disposable. They want players to migrate from world to world every 1-3 months, and the game to be more about the fight to dominate and exploit the limited resources than life in a persistent world.
They are also doing a selective PvP where players select their level of risk, mostly about the percentage of "scavenged items" that they will lose if they are defeated by another player (no idea what counts as "scavenged"). Ofc, the riskier areas offer better resources/etc. I guess "The Dregs" is the FFA/full loot area. Equipment will break eventually, and the crafting system looks like it might be of the same school as a lot of stuff that was in SWG.
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Feb 25, 2015 5:02:20 GMT
Need to know how many of the worlds will be run by them though as opposed to how many will be run by the players. If they can crank out legit worlds from themselves at a rate where they are required then that would be great. Sounds like they might procedurally generate the worlds to some degree so that is fine, but the problem I think about now is how much of the five modes above is going to be left to players to create?
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Post by kb on Feb 25, 2015 5:37:57 GMT
Need to know how many of the worlds will be run by them though as opposed to how many will be run by the players. If they can crank out legit worlds from themselves at a rate where they are required then that would be great. Sounds like they might procedurally generate the worlds to some degree so that is fine, but the problem I think about now is how much of the five modes above is going to be left to players to create? Yeah it's pretty unclear what will influence all of these different world attributes (stuff like melee DPS being more effective on one world vs. magic DPS and vice versa). Will it be the players? It is something just random? I also don't really understand what bearing the "Eternal Kingdom" stuff has on actual gameplay. Since there is mention of "tax free" lots, it seems like there will be some kind of advantage linked to having these instanced housing/guildhall type spaces, but I still haven't figured that out. Also, plenty of questions about what happens to players who want to go it alone (or who are landless). I don't know much about this game except for looking around their info page and forums a bit. From what I've seen on their forums, the community is already fractured though around traditional fault lines. There are plenty of Shadowbane players railing against the Wizard 101 and other PvE/carebears, and plenty of carebears arguing for what they want too.
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Feb 25, 2015 6:13:49 GMT
Eternal Kingdom is a world run by the creators which will be persistent. Assuming it will be the only persistent world you can connect to. At this point in time I am assuming that 99 out of 100 worlds will all be player run with only very few ever being created by the game creators. This cheapens the game considerably, especially since that means I would then be playing on someone's "server" with their own home grown rules. Not cool.
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Post by kb on Feb 25, 2015 6:44:11 GMT
Eternal Kingdom is a world run by the creators which will be persistent. Assuming it will be the only persistent world you can connect to. At this point in time I am assuming that 99 out of 100 worlds will all be player run with only very few ever being created by the game creators. This cheapens the game considerably, especially since that means I would then be playing on someone's "server" with their own home grown rules. Not cool. A lot of this stuff is discussed in their FAQ: crowfall.com/#/faq/54d23a28cb64aad54d68afd8I've glanced at it, but still haven't really wrapped my head around what they are trying to do here. They obviously marketed the game well (and/or had a lot of interest), because their KS looks like it will be wildly successful. Big question is if they will really be able to deliver all these things they are talking about (and do it in a way that makes intuitive sense). Some of it sounds cool, but like you said, most of the persistent worlds might be player run. That could be cool if ppl were building intricate stuff like this: Or this: But it would be a huge pain in the ass if the only decent worlds that were worth visiting were worlds that might suddenly disappear because the owner locked them, or stopped playing, or whatever... Also, still big questions about just how much creative freedom (and influence) players might have. I've seen some stuff about EQ:Next level of terrain modification (and ofc, plenty of Minecraft talk in light of the "destruction" of these "voxels"), but idk the official stance and who knows what is actually implemented in game. We all know what is promised and what is delivered can be very different things. The FAQ mentions that there will be plenty of worlds and campaigns of various rulesets (and says people won't ever need to visit a kingdom if they don't want to), but it also gives a one year max life for one of these worlds/campaigns. I'll have to read more, but I can't tell whether or not there will be dev-made persistent worlds (with all different types and rulesets/etc available for players to try). They say there will be a variety of rule sets, but I don't know if that applies to dev-made "permanent" worlds (vs. the procedurally-generated worlds that will eventually decay). It also mentions various penalties to discourage players from "campaign-hopping" (i.e., hopping between the more impermanent worlds). Stuff like locking players from moving, or taking away rewards they've earned so far, seems like it could make the initial choice of what world you go to really important. I would guess many players will pick the shortest campaigns (to prevent getting stuck in a world/ruleset that they don't enjoy).
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Feb 25, 2015 6:46:28 GMT
Hmm, this requires more research It doesn't sound like a total loss really.
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Post by kb on Feb 25, 2015 7:33:53 GMT
I've found myself interested in how they are doing things differently when compared to other Kickstarters.
They just kinda appeared out of nowhere a month ago (clearly with a polished plan and well-presented marketing presence). It started with a clean, modern-looking website that featured a big "30-day" countdown timer, an explanation of who they are and what they intend to do, an invitation to register (clean and simple and right there on the main page), and some links to forums with a fair amount of details/concept art/"gameplay" footage to hint toward what the game might be.
I only became aware of them because I read Raph Koster's blog from time to time and I was interested in the little snippets of discussions they had where he covers ideas about how to create procedurally generated maps with nodes and all of that shit that will place players into circumstances where they will have to PvP if they want to secure a resource/structure/etc. (see 1:15):
I find their pricing really interesting (both their goal and the prices of their pledge levels). It seems across the board, their goal and tiers are like 10-20% less the Portalarium's pledge levels and, on the surface at least, there appears to be less emphasis on the "pay for an advantage" cash shop stuff.
1) Portalarium's goal was 1mil, Artcraft's is 20% less ($800k) 2) Port's "lower level" premium pledge (which wasn't available during their KS, though it probably should have been) is the $275 Ancestor pledge. Crowfall's is $250 (~10% less than SotA). 3) It doesn't appear that Crowfall will have a cash shop, but there are some threads about likelihood of "official" RMT (kinda along the lines of how ISK works in EvE), and they do offer monthly sub option that apparently lets you jump server queues (no idea if there are other benefits to doing this). 4) The Eternal Kingdoms will give players the ability to levy taxes and stuff (for others who live there), and there are things in the FAQ about spoils of campaigns being brought back to your kingdom (and giving you buffs), but I have no idea why people would want to live in another person's kingdom and pay taxes and what advantage this kind of shit would give somebody....
I am mostly interested in the Kickstarters that you posted, mostly because they allow me to examine the differing approach that each takes. While Crowfall's graphics remind me of WoW (and something about it reminds me of Smite/LoL even Torchlight 2/D3 too), and what is seen in that pitch video isn't really all that polished, I still think that it is marketed better than the other games (at least to a broader audience).
Like, the ideas behind Trials of Ascension sound amazing, but the animations in that video were just terrible. I've seen a lot of complaints about the graphics of Underworld Ascension too (at least on YT videos and in comments). I don't necessarily agree with any of that, but I do think it shows how important the appearance and marketing of this kind of stuff is.
One other thing that really stands out to me is how much cleaner and more "mobile friendly" Crowfall's website is when compared to SotA, UWA, or ToA. It's clear that their website was designed with phone/tablet users in mind, and the graphical presentation is a lot less distracting than the competition. Some people might prefer the visual flair of SotA/UWA/ToA's sites, but I still think one of the mistakes SotA made (very early on) is they didn't really showcase their game the right way, especially when it came to their website. I know it's not that important in the long run, but I still believe the initial impression people form is impotant, and they didn't sell the story of what SotA was/is in an honest and compelling enough way to keep people interested/satisfied.
I have no idea if the Crowfall ppl will have any better luck, but at least on the outset, it seems like they have their shit more together than Portalarium did. The way they rolled out their KS and had a lot of these assets and things all lined up in advance shows a lot of pre-planning and careful design. Some people have complained about the perception that the ins and outs of SotA are sort of planned on the fly, with a lot of inefficiencies and disunity as a result. I'll be interested to see how the Crowfall team does over the long haul with maintaining this level of polish and forethought to everything. It might be easy to achieve now, when things are fresh and people are giddy with excitement, but I wonder what will happen 6 months or a year from now after people have had some time to dig into more details...
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Feb 25, 2015 9:01:34 GMT
Time will tell! I like the approach they took with a decent shot at some marketing prior to the KS, that clearly had a huge impact. Look at their status one day in. Nothing gets other people to pledge more than a lot of cash already up on the board. Crowfall is going to be a success in terms of KS, the other two guys and especially the Wizard101 guy have a shit ton of experience in cranking out content, let us see if they can do that. Without too much more Game of Thrones cheap shots...
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Post by kb on Feb 25, 2015 19:31:20 GMT
I'm pretty skeptical, despite the polished marketing and soon-to-be successful KS, because $800k is a very small amount for such ambitious features. I will admit that at least on their forums, they have SOME people who know what's up with combat and actually appear to have played a newer MMO in the last 10 years (which is more than I can say about a lot of SotA players/devs). The devs actually replied to that thread a few times and seem to be open to the criticism about telegraphs. Also, I've found several threads where people are quite negative about things they've seen so far and ::gasp:: the devs actually appear receptive to it (at this point, anyway)! Based on what we've seen with SotA, I doubt sentiments like this will last very long, but it's still an interesting contrast to the "we know best" arrogance that we've all grown too accustomed to:
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Post by Gunga_Din on Feb 25, 2015 20:49:21 GMT
I've lost hope with this Kickstarter shit to be honest. Single player games i'm ok with, but mmos, NO. You need more backing to make it work.
Hmm, this video looks promising..
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Mar 2, 2015 2:56:20 GMT
900k, actually just re-reading the goals, I've noticed a lot of "VIP" monthly things going on... Are you paying for a game, and still not getting access to all of it? Lawlz, wtf is going on these days! Not only does it work, it works well...
The French economy is doing well, but from what I hear in the states where I assume most of this is taking place, it isn't going so well. People should know what they are getting into before they buy this shit...
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Post by kb on Mar 2, 2015 3:17:18 GMT
Yeah, and the pledges on Crowfall's KS mention a *Veteran* VIP Membership.... Which ofc begs the question: community.crowfall.com/index.php?/topic/3193-kickstarter-veteran-vip-membership-what-wait-a-minute/So, not only will the game feature some kind of VIP package (for example, a $15 sub that gives "advantages" like cutting line in queues during peak hours/etc.), but this VIP stuff might carve things up further with distinctions in service/prices( ) based on your "tier" of service. Names like "Veteran" (and probably other "war" related shit) will probably be used to distinguish the levels of service.
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Mar 2, 2015 3:22:03 GMT
Crowfall can blow me.
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Post by kb on Mar 2, 2015 3:32:25 GMT
I missed the last page of that thread...
So, they say it's not meant as a distinction, but....
With the things we've seen with Port changing things on the sly (not on the KS page, but on their own FAQ/etc <-- well documented by IM), I wouldn't put it past the Crowfall ppl to want to offer tiered packages (and this was only called a "Typo" after somebody noticed the word Veteran and asked about it)... I bet they call it a typo because they wouldn't want to discuss a pricing matter like that so early, lest they piss people off. Instead, wait until later (when you have more money from everybody and believe you can afford to alienate a lot of your fanbase).
It will be interesting to see what comes of this. I bet a year or more from now, they'll try to sneak this shit in anyway (maybe even after the game releases)... and they'll probably try to play it off like it was intended all along (maybe even quote the very same KS stuff as indication of what they intended, the very same shit that was called a "typo" by this ACE -- in other words, "Don't lawyer us, bros!"). Same shit, only different crew.
Ofc, maybe it was an honest mistake, but after the shit we've all seen with things being changed on the sly, it's hard to trust anybody's integrity anymore.
I would love for any of these crews to prove us all wrong and make some awesome game that is much deeper than shamelessly milking people's wallets by shamefully exploiting their misguided desire to keep up with the (virtual) Joneses.... Don't see it happening any time soon. There are some unique 1st player crowd-funded games with some real heart. But I haven't seen anything special like that when it comes to expansive multiplayer experiences.
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Mar 2, 2015 3:40:29 GMT
I'd love to see that too. Given that thread was going since the 26th and there was no official word on their forum about it and only an update from a user yesterday... It ain't going to be this game or this crew.
Next.
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Post by Gunga_Din on Mar 2, 2015 5:53:24 GMT
Yea, think i'll pass on this game. Maybe if they raise 20-30 mil it has potential, but we no very well what happens with 5 mil funding lol..
I remember reading somewhere that RG thought he was gonna reach 20 mil for SotA. I bet thats what he expected and since we never reached that high, we are getting an MMO with a lot of shortcuts.
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Post by Housewife Brittish on Mar 13, 2015 22:47:15 GMT
Are you all backing this or not?
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Post by Gunga_Din on Mar 13, 2015 23:11:37 GMT
Are you all backing this or not? Not a chance, unless they hit 20 mil.
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Post by Housewife Brittish on Mar 13, 2015 23:50:16 GMT
I'll most likely end up backing it just because I know I'll want to try it when it's released anyways. I read as much as I could on it and learned some things. Like how it's not going to be a tab targeting game, which is good. The way they described how the targeting will work does sound like a version of auto attack though, not sure what to think about this, I wish there was more information. Something else that I read which I liked was the fact that you won't be able to run through other players. I wish for once that developers would get organized before launching their kickstarter. Having a layout describing how key aspects of the game will work, like the combat system. It's not a good feeling blindly pledging after being shit on by other developers.
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Mar 14, 2015 0:56:31 GMT
If you are too specific before people pay for things, they might not pay for them. Mission Accomplished.
Kickstarting is kind of like running for politics now, they'll kiss us babies and happily take our money to produce a pile of shit.
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Post by Gunga_Din on Mar 14, 2015 1:31:36 GMT
If you are too specific before people pay for things, they might not pay for them. Mission Accomplished. Kickstarting is kind of like running for politics now, they'll kiss us babies and happily take our money to produce a pile of shit. Yea, i think my days of giving money to has been and out of works dev's is finished. I'll wait for complete games where everyone that pays $60 gets the same start and experience. I'll let every other fool risk money on words and promises.
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Post by Housewife Brittish on Mar 14, 2015 1:55:38 GMT
The big problem that I have is that there is no other mmorpg game out there at the moment worth playing and that I've learned that I need to actually try a game before fully saying it's shit or not. I'm always looking for new mmorpg's, been looking for to many years now.
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Mar 14, 2015 2:20:53 GMT
The big problem that I have is that there is no other mmorpg game out there at the moment worth playing and that I've learned that I need to actually try a game before fully saying it's shit or not. I'm always looking for new mmorpg's, been looking for to many years now. Yeah, I'm pretty much where you are on this as well. We just need to find our own balance in the situation because they will sell you exactly what you want, you will fill in your own positive expectations of what might happen and happily fork over a few hundred based on your own personal best case scenario. Shroud of the Avatar has taught me a valuable lesson in that regard. Trust No One.
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Post by Gunga_Din on Mar 14, 2015 2:41:51 GMT
The big problem that I have is that there is no other mmorpg game out there at the moment worth playing and that I've learned that I need to actually try a game before fully saying it's shit or not. I'm always looking for new mmorpg's, been looking for to many years now. MMORPGs are dead. Multi-player games no, but large virtual MMO worlds are done.
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Post by Housewife Brittish on Mar 14, 2015 3:26:15 GMT
I agree, it's pretty weird how more advanced technology and capabilities have started a revolution of developers making trash games. Seems like these people are more focused on trying to one up everyone else by creating wonky shit than to develop a game with function, detail, complexity within the mechanics. It seems like a lot of games seem promising at first than there is that one or a few things that just ruins it.
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Post by Gunga_Din on Mar 14, 2015 3:37:10 GMT
I agree, it's pretty weird how more advanced technology and capabilities have started a revolution of developers making trash games. Seems like these people are more focused on trying to one up everyone else by creating wonky shit than to develop a game with function, detail, complexity within the mechanics. It seems like a lot of games seem promising at first than there is that one or a few things that just ruins it. I RETRO game more. Playing games from the 80's and I find them of higher quality than the shit today. Crazy I know, but I am enjoying my nostalgic time..
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Post by templara on Jun 10, 2015 17:27:39 GMT
Ladies, calm ur boners. Didnt read the thread yet but I'm guessing ur all jizzing over the fact that Raph Coster got involved with the project.
Anyway, the game will be a half-carebearish piece of shit. No persistent world, only session 1-3 months long. Wtf is this shit. Also, it will have carebear servers, so all the flowers and #carebears can go play safely kill dragons n shit.
It looked promising at first glance, especially if you've read the letter from the developers that they wrote before they announced the game. Buuuut the more I learn about this game, the more I despise it.
Their forums are populated with carebears, 12-year-olds, anime fans and similar nonhumans, I've been there once and have no desire to return.
Thanks for reading. xD
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