Crowfall aka Play2Crush aka Shadowbane II aka Nostalgia Online

[Falconeer]

Rumor has it.

[Draegan]

I think resetting the servers is not the major deal here. The difficult task on their hands, and where true innovation could happen, will be finding a way to make it so the campaigns matter, and keep being contested long enough to keep it interesting and eventually make it feel like you had a great run whether you won or lost. This is the big challenge, and probably the one not many felt like undertaking so far because it's so damn hard. Also, making sure that conflict happens and things don't go to sleep as soon as one kingdom has the upper hand, or worse everyone on the server joining the winning faction to get the rewards and then wait until the server dies to reap the rewards and start on a new one. Nothing was worse, both in GW2 and TESO, than being in a losing faction with days until the next reset and knowing there was nothing that could be done to recover. As a result, fighting always really occurred in the first few days of a campaign. Everything else was frustration both on the winning and the losing side.

The way to do this is fairly simple, it's the ability to carry over resources/gear/skill progression over to the next campaign. Even if you're on the losing end of the campaign, you can still play the game to "prep" for the next campaign. Just like a lot of people "prep" for an upcoming WOW expansion.

[Viin]

That could work, though it'd probably have to be something less individualized such as your gear. Winning bonuses and other exclusives would be cool, such as the ability to make certain defenses or offensive weapons for your guild. Those could carry to the next campaign without always worrying about how "old" gear balances against the new content.

[Lightstalker]

That could work, though it'd probably have to be something less individualized such as your gear. Winning bonuses and other exclusives would be cool, such as the ability to make certain defenses or offensive weapons for your guild. Those could carry to the next campaign without always worrying about how "old" gear balances against the new content.

'cept you can't carry anything forward that helps the strong get stronger or else you end up exactly where Shadowbane was - murder on late adopters.

The winner rewards will have to be like a divisional champions banner to hang in your home stadium, cosmetic.  Now, if there was some way to enforce a draft for each new world...

[schild]

It's nice to see that even in 2015, we can't help but theorycraft a game that has a higher than 50% chance of never seeing the light of day in any form they're currently jawing off about it.

And by nice I mean 'omg stahp, pls stahp dolan"

[Falconeer]

We know that every campaign has different rules for what you can bring with you when you enter the new world/campaign.

[Falconeer]

C'mon Schild. In the era with no good games (according to you), f13 is still our favourite MMO. 

[HaemishM]

Yeah, it's not like there's much to talk about with ANY MMOG's these days. They are all one flavor or other of grindy shit. Theorycrafting about vaporware is the only fun left in MMOG's.

[Lantyssa]

It's that or start talking about SWG again...

[schild]

How about I just rename the parent forum here NORTH KOREA and let it starve

[Malakili]

'omg stahp, pls stahp dolan"

This pretty much describes the entire MMORPG genre at this point. 

[Bzalthek]

MMOforum with repeating campaigns.  LFR for heroic Bloodworth: groundhog boogaloo.

[Paelos]

It's nice to see that even in 2015, we can't help but theorycraft a game that has a higher than 50% chance of never seeing the light of day in any form they're currently jawing off about it.

And by nice I mean 'omg stahp, pls stahp dolan"

They haven't even started selling ships yet.

ONWARD!

[Malakili]

Yeah, it's kind of funny that a game promising to finally deliver on open world PvP, a deep crafting system and has only shown us a handful of screenshots seems quaint and reasonable by the standard Star Citizen has set.

[kaid]

That could work, though it'd probably have to be something less individualized such as your gear. Winning bonuses and other exclusives would be cool, such as the ability to make certain defenses or offensive weapons for your guild. Those could carry to the next campaign without always worrying about how "old" gear balances against the new content.

'cept you can't carry anything forward that helps the strong get stronger or else you end up exactly where Shadowbane was - murder on late adopters.

The winner rewards will have to be like a divisional champions banner to hang in your home stadium, cosmetic.  Now, if there was some way to enforce a draft for each new world...

Seeing some of the screen shots of the server options I don't think that will be that huge of an issue. One of the server options is % of inventory loss on death and also major durability hits on death. It looks like you may have some advantage after winning but deaths would eat into that rather rapidly. Now how thats actually implemented in the live game is the question but it does appear they are aware of it and are going the eve route of having your toys destructible.

[Raph]

FWIW, all of the design sessions between myself and Todd (and Blair) have been filmed, so... for all I know you might get that reality show. :P

[schild]

I can't see a single reason to do that unless you're planning to Kickstart the whole affair.

[sam, an eggplant]

My initial response was, if you're talking over google hangouts or whatever anyway, why not record for later reference?

But upon further reflection, it's better to just take notes like a normal person. It's not like you can speed through a video of talking heads, you'd need to sit there watching the screen for hours to refer back.

So yeah, only likely reason is a making-of mini-documentary kickstarter reward.

[Falconeer]

I totally want that documentary. That said, if people can hold developers accountable for "promises" they made before releasing of a game when they typed something, I can't even imagine what would they do if they had a video recording of a dev saying something is gonna be in the game (and ended up not). They'd overanalyze every syllable and every voice intonation and facial microexpression to come up with some conspiration theory that proves that devs are a liars and did it to swindle the loyal and kind customers.

[tmp]

I can't see a single reason to do that unless you're planning to Kickstart the whole affair.

Evidence, so couple years down the road there's a clear answer to every "now, whose dumb idea *this* was"

[schild]

I can't see a single reason to do that unless you're planning to Kickstart the whole affair.

Evidence, so couple years down the road there's a clear answer to every "now, whose dumb idea *this* was"

Man. This idea has Raph or Todd written all fucking over it.

I can not stress how unbelievably daft this entire project is. Liking these people makes it harder for me to go "stop." Harder is relative though. It's still not too difficult to say that.

[schild]

In other news, can someone dig up who the fuck is funding this thing? If it's being funded by I don't know, Massive Gamer magazine's #1 Most Influential Game Developer in the World, that's one thing. If there's like, actual American Dollars behind it, I want to know who it is.

I want to know who still falls for the video game long con.

[Teleku]

I can't see a single reason to do that unless you're planning to Kickstart the whole affair.

Evidence, so couple years down the road there's a clear answer to every "now, whose dumb idea *this* was"

Man. This idea has Raph or Todd written all fucking over it.

I can not stress how unbelievably daft this entire project is. Liking these people makes it harder for me to go "stop." Harder is relative though. It's still not too difficult to say that.

What aspects of the project do you think are bad?  My doubts come from a funding perspective, as nothing this big can be kickstarted (at least not without a lot of other major funding coming from somewhere else).  The game itself, if they actually make one like they are planning, I think can be quite successful in its own niche.

[schild]

What aspects of the project do you think are bad?

The game itself, if they actually make one like they are planning, I think can be quite successful in its own niche.

Exactly which MMOG came out as actually planned early on?

[Teleku]

So, you think its just going to evolve into a generic DIKU instead of an open world PvP Sandbox?

[Falconeer]

What I think will happen, and of course I wish it wouldn't, is:

- It will be full of bugs for a long time and lots of promised features and subsystems will take ages to be implemented.
- Because of Early Access people will be allowed in very soon in development and will be very unhappy and very vocal about everything, creating a toxic environment that will confuse developers who will lose focus and will dilute the original design. Generating even more drama.
- The Early Access buggy unhappiness will generate bad word of mouth and the project will be permanently hurt by bad press. People will love to make fun of this game and will take every chance to mock it publicly.  
- Lots of stuff will eventually be cut before release. Adding to the drama and death threats from some people and pointing and laughing from some other.
- It will turn out that it's harder than they thought to have these kind of players (the hardcore PvP niche) to actually play2crush instead of play2exploit, as the majority will do everything they can to exploit the server rules or just dance around win conditions in order to gain as much as possible at the expenses of fair and fun campaigns. Either you will be in one of the big winning groups, or you won't be able to do anything crushed between empty lands (zones that are not useful) or pure steamroll (zones that are worthy).
- Ultimately, combat will probably be janky and not as snappy or interesting, making the whole thing quite unpleasant to play.

Some or all these conditions will show up and will infect Crowfall before it can get where it dreams to go because this is the history of MMORPGs save for a handful of exceptions. Statistically, it has very few chances to succeed. Especially due to its ambitious design.
Then again, sometimes people win the lotto and sometimes an EVE happens, so you can't blame them for trying.

[Malakili]

- Because of Early Access people will be allowed in very soon in development and will be very unhappy and very vocal about everything, creating a toxic environment that will confuse developers who will lose focus and will dilute the original design. Generating even more drama.

Not to mention that making something public means they've got to spend time putting out fires insofar as it relates to people actually being able to play the game that really they shouldn't be worried about.  I see this all the time. Big features get pushed back and pushed back because players are clamoring for the unfinished stuff in the game to be more clean and playable.  But that isn't necessarily the right thing to do during development.  I guess I don't know TOO much about managing this kind of project, but early access seems like it throws a huge wrench into the works.

[Falconeer]

I would say that Early Access does a great job for lots of games, but terrible things for MMOs. I hope they will not do an Early Access, and will stick to closed betas for a long time. Interestingly, I used to think otherwise up to a few years ago. Early Access, which is paid beta, is a very questionable arrangement to begin with, but it really brings out the worst from the customers.

[Malakili]

Early Access, which is paid beta, is a very questionable arrangement to begin with, but it really brings out the worst from the customers.

Well, if you're a paying customer you have at least some right to be upset if what you have is garbage.  I know people should understand they are buying the finished product and that in the meantime they've bought the opportunity to play the unfinished version, but that isn't how it works.  Especially not with free to play ascending as the pay model of choice.  When a early access game has a fully functioning cash shop, early access feels... questionable.

I guess the first game I remember doing this was Minecraft.  I bought into that just days after I found out what it was way back in alpha right before the very first f13 server went up (summer 2010?).  I loved the hell out of that game from the beginning, but the very worst Minecraft ever could be is legos.  And legos are awesome.  I think Minecraft's insane success helped push the model.  The problem is that most games aren't  Minecraft.

[Falconeer]

Some new screenshots showing off the Templar class, and what a generic zombie mob would look over the four seasons as corruption kicks in. Too bad it's only concept art.



More under the spoiler.

[Threash]

It says right there pre alpha game footage, not concept art. Oh nm, didn't see the last one.

[Paelos]

In other news, can someone dig up who the fuck is funding this thing? If it's being funded by I don't know, Massive Gamer magazine's #1 Most Influential Game Developer in the World, that's one thing. If there's like, actual American Dollars behind it, I want to know who it is.

I want to know who still falls for the video game long con.

SEC Filings say the thing was created in June of last year, had 10 investors on the listing with Todd as the filing principle, and posted $2,354,921 of equity in the startup.

[Triforcer]

As I said earlier, even if kickstarter is good for another 2 or 3 million, 5 million is not enough.  Camelot has that, and has been hobbled by a lack of programmers. 

[tazelbain]

Ya, for projects that need 10s of millions, KS is part of your PR campaign not your primary source of financing.

[tazelbain]

Also they need another campaign type on carebear-side where very little resources carry over. Maybe a progressive mode that starts off with players/builds being nearly invulnerable and, as the seasons progress, they become more vulnerable.