f13.net

The kind of game they actually want is God of War with the endless waves of cannon fodder being actual people.

Allies. Enemies. Alliances. Betrayal. Risk. Conquest. To compete with THOUSANDS of other players for a chance to claim the THRONE.

Seriously, are we going back to LOL U NO HAVE 500k USERS WOW HAS 6M U FAIL!?

These kind of games all piled together have maybe 20k, 40k users. What's wrong with those numbers? It is a NICHE. If they can make something elegant and functional with a budget aimed at those numbers, like the previously mentioned games which are arguably terrible and still are alive, they can do well and eventually expand the niche.

These kind of games all piled together have maybe 20k, 40k users. What's wrong with those numbers?

I mean, you're free to dream of millions of people wanting to play an open world full PvP full loot MMO, but the reality is that very few people want this.  Or someone would have successfully filled that niche by now.

There are a lot of people that will play a game like this. However, there aren't a lot of people who want to play a shitty game with this theme.

Can you read? Where did anyone say millons? How is a niche ever dreaming of 'millions'? I, for example, mentioned 20k - 40k players above and I doubt Draegan was thinking much bigger than that. No Soulflame, YOU are wrong because you base your opinions on nothing but vague observations of what is popular among your group of friends, and what is talked about on the videogame info outlets you consider meaningful. Except none of that means shit when you are specifically talking about niche games made for a niche audience you clearly know nothing about. The "very few" you are talking about are more than enough to make a good product on these themes viable (different from WILDLY SUCCESSFUL), and that is, again, why some games of this kind still exist.

But you know what Soulflame, since you reeeeeally wanna talk millions, let me ask you something: DayZ -a game with full PvP and permadeath- sold 3 million copies of its ALPHA verson in a year. Now, if anyone pitched that idea to you three years ago, full PvP, full loot, permadeath, how many copies would you have predicted it could ever sell?

DayZ does not prove that there's a pool of 3 millions willing to play a new Shadowbane, but it proves that what you think you know about what people want is wrong.



Perfectly said.

The score is:  16 years of me being right, and you being wrong.  Let's see how long this streak keeps going!

DayZ has a peak of 21k today:  http://store.steampowered.com/stats/  Let me know when they're willing to pay $15 a month for the privilege.  i.e. I wager this will never happen.

The score is:  16 years of me being right, and you being wrong.  Let's see how long this streak keeps going!

DayZ has a peak of 21k today:  http://store.steampowered.com/stats/  Let me know when they're willing to pay $15 a month for the privilege.  i.e. I wager this will never happen.

I think you are really missing the point that Draegan and Falc are making. Darkfall still has its doors open. EVE still has its doors open. That invalidates your opinion that there is no market for sub based full loot pvp games. A game with proper budgeting and management goals can survive quite nicely on 20 to 40k. The only caveat is that the game has to be high quality (as in not buggy or broken).

You need to quit reading past what people are saying in this thread.

Eve is a non-factor in this discussion since the vast, vast majority of players chain themselves to Hi Sec space. 

A huge, huge number of people who play EVE and spend the majority of their time in Hi Sec space would have quit EVE a long time ago if they knew there is no Lo Sec space.

It's not a question of "Is there a market for this."

It's a question of, "Will the developers budget for, plan to and understand the size of that market."

Most likely outcome? Nope. There's a history of that here. Trotting out PLAY2CRUSH 10 years later doesn't raise my hopes, either. It lowers them.

Then, in 4-5 years after the explosion, when this cycle happens again, we'll see the same arguments. The game was coded poorly, the game didn't understand the market. The game could have been epic If Only.  If. If. If.

Also, since subs are dead, we're likely to have a nice heaping of, "There was too much Paywall bullshit in the way. "

PVP is a thing and it's always been popular in computer games. Since the first DOOM and QUAKE deathmatches and the MUDS before them.  What they've all had in common is fast in, fast out games where the only real loss is what happened over that game session.

Start tying in long-term stats, equipment games and profiles and you get something different. People expect not to lose their session gains, only to lose matches. That's more like your traditional MMO and doesn't work well at all with permadeth and full loot. Not if you're aiming at a big audience.

Aim at 40-100k? Sure, go for it. There's a niche there you can run with. Too bad egos and investors expect more.

It's not a question of "Is there a market for this."

It's a question of, "Will the developers budget for, plan to and understand the size of that market."

Most likely outcome? Nope.

MOBAs aren't MMOs. No persistent world.

MOBAs aren't MMOs. No persistent world.

MOBAs aren't MMOs. No persistent world.

Few people want PvP in an open world because people don't like to do stuff they don't absolutely want to do right at that moment in their video games.  Open World PvP, in practice, means "PvP even when I don't want to PvP" and no one has to play League of Legends when they want to be picking flowers.  It's pretty simple. The successful Open World games (Skyrim for example) have gotten rid of barriers to doing what you want while these kind of old school MMOs are pretty much ABOUT the barriers.

In the meantime, you've got people like my brother in-law who I was talking to on Christmas about games.  He was singing the praises of Skyrim because he likes "open world" games, but thought that "new one" (he mean't Elder Scrolls Online) was bullshit because it was online all the time and multiplayer only.   He doesn't even know what an MMO is and he is much more representative of the game playing public than I am.

The thing any PvP game needs is AI carebears.  Just make them indistinguishable from players and have them run around farming ore nodes or whatnot.  Then when they get jumped by a player, they have about a ten percent chance to make a randomly generated ragepost about it on the game forum talking about how they're quitting forever.  GOTY, more subs than WoW.

You can't make AI cry IRL...or can you? :ye_gods:

League of Legends proved there is a market for "PVP." Only that PVP is not in a persistent fucking world with any sort of actual loss attributed to being the loser. You'd think people who have lost money and jobs trying to build for the vast Mongloid hordes of shit-talking twats out there would have fucking twigged to that by now. Forum posters, people who take polls and people who contribute to Kickstarter's are not even close to any sort of majority, so unless you can make your game completely funded by this vocal shitstains, you can forget making a PVP persistent world MMOG with "real stakes" at risk. It doesn't matter how well executed they are (and with the crew listed on that web site, it will not be anywhere near well-executed), the market IS NOT THERE.

The worst thing people risk in LoL is their ranking, and it is STILL filled with a vile toxic playerbase full of people who may or may not be paying one thin dime to the company making the game. Those people aren't waiting for a persistent world fuckfest where they can lose all their shit. The day of the commercial full-on PVP MMO is DONE. PVP'ers lost, but they mainly lost because they cannot fucking control their urges to be complete and utter shitheels to the people who provide the games (the devs) and the sheeple they feast upon in game.

I'm beginning to think I should open a consultancy for investors to tell them when a video game project is a bad fucking idea.

That might be my "million dollar idea."

This really should be bolded and sticked somewhere prominent.

MOBAs stole the ground from MMO PVP a long time ago in video game terms. MOBAs are cheaper to build and let players get right to the fun part without making them spend time killing giant rats to earn the right to play what they want to play.


Call the company "Pretty Much All Of Them Inc".

You can reference us as your freelance consulting team.

I still believe that you can make a great MMO open world PVP game if it's actually designed by people who aren't idiots.

edit:
I guess the point is, all MMO devs are dumb and so that means you'll never have a good MMO again.

To me, it's trying to creating a MOBA like game but in a persistent world. Instead of collecting gear, you collect classes. Full loot PVP, but gear is very very easy to get in the same sense items are "easy" to get in a game of DOTA/LOL. I dunno, I think it can be done.

FPS, RTS and MOBAs have since proved that the most important persistence for gamers is the account, not an always-on virtual room.

So, then, Call of Duty? Or if less twitchy: Titanfall?

I'm not being facetous. Yes I realize you mean "persistent world" in the sense of a WoW zone;

I tried to ask you a question before: how many of you would have predicted that a game like DayZ could sell 3 million copies? Or how many of you would have predicted it could sell 300k copies? The answer is no one.

Are any of those actually MMOs? Don't think anyone is arguing that people don't enjoy killing other players. But Street Fighter IV Alpha Max Edition Turbo Plus isn't a MMO either.

I am sure we agree that the definition is now pretty vague, but I think they are yes. Your characters, items, buildings and vehicles persist on the servers which range from 60 to 200 concurrent users. Some of these games are even developing a "central economy", and you cannot achieve anything offline or privately that you can then move to a persistent server

At 200 users max they certainly aren't massively multiplayer-- but once you get past that mental gap yeah, if you've got a persistent world with an economy, it's a MMO. Really persistence is my "I know pornography when I see it" threshold. Persistence=MMO. Non-persistent=not.

They also ALL play off the "alpha access" to cover-up the bugs, shitty coding and other nonsense.

If you have to pay money and there's no cap on the amount of people let in it's not an alpha or a beta.  It's a bad and unfinished game you've duped idiots into paying for. Sorry.

Only with software are people this gullible. Kudos to the assholes for squeezing them.

What MMO is actually massive? Outside of standing idle in a city, would you ever notice the difference between 50 or 2000 people on a WOW server? I think that's the problem some people have.

...

Oh god forbid some people have fun with a game for a small chunk of coin.

What MMO is actually massive? Outside of standing idle in a city, would you ever notice the difference between 50 or 2000 people on a WOW server? I think that's the problem some people have. 

Countdown to crowdfunding appea

I think anyone who has played in an MMO where there server population is dying can tell you there is a pretty big qualitative difference in the experience. There is something about a persistent world that that is self contained.  Just that pool of players, just that pool of characters, just that finite space.   Running into a guy questing in the same area all week because you both log in after work every day, make friends, add to your friends list, team up for dungeons in your level range.  That kind of stuff is really compelling in a way that isn't replicated by games that instance all their zones such that I never see the same people twice.  So yeah, the difference between 50 people and 2000 people does matter a lot.

As for the alpha backing things - I think it's fine to do and play IF you can get something out of the game immediately.  However, I am honestly pretty nervous about what it means for the hobby as a whole when there is a lot of incentive to put something out there that is unfinished by kind of compelling because you can make loads of cash off the hype.  I've done it a few times myself and have had mixed results.  I've been pretty judicious, so I've only felt like I really made a mistake once. 

I mean I guess I'm romanticizing it?  I've spent a lot of time on exactly 3 MMOs over the years.  World War 2 Online, EVE, and World of Warcraft.  I've played dozens of others, but none of the others touched those three in terms of pure time spent.  I haven't played WoW since they did that cluster thing. 

Wildstar - Uhm. I can't think of anything. I really tried to find something good about the game. I only played it because I was bored.

Great marketing?

But then, League of Legends et al. are the same way and people play those by the millions.

But in pvp having someone to blame when you lose is if not a feature at least beneficial to the ego.

The problem, as it is with all team games, is how much do you want to be playing a game where joe random can ruin your fun because he sucks at the game?  Or even from the other side of the equation in good faith - do you want to play a game where you are under the pressure of knowing if you don't play well you've ruined someone else's session?  When you have a group of like-minded, good players MMO raid and difficult dungeon content is very fun and engaging.  When you don't, it's a total nightmare that makes you feel like you wasted an evening.  But then, League of Legends et al. are the same way and people play those by the millions.

Thats the problem with "modern day" raids. One person can fuck everyone's night with mistakes but there is no room for one person to be the hero of everyone's night. That's part of why LOL is fun. You can feed, but one person on your team can carry you. In a typical raid, one mistake basically wastes 20 minutes of everyones night and people hate you and it happens in a heart beat.

Is this actually the case? I thought one of the worst things about MOBAs is that it's almost impossible for one person to carry a bunch of "bads".  Or even four people to carry one guy who isn't playing well, or even in sync with the general strategy.

I can tell some stories about one guy being a hero in raids.  My favorite has to be our druid healer who had to pop open his spell book to find bear form so that he could "tank" the last 2% of the first kill of a boss in Ulduar.

Or make leveling about increasing your options rather than your power.

I would love someone figuring out how to have your power reflect your cumulative choices, to be driven as much by narrative progression as anything else, in both a standard RPG and an MMO. I don't mind the idea of content being gated in some sense by whether I'm a young warrior swinging my sword for the first time or a grizzled old adventurer with fifty scars, but I hate the idea of advancing kill-by-kill, mission-by-mission. That's what's wrong with levels--the incremental Pavlovian conditioning, the need to make every play session matter because you got a bit further towards the next level rather than had an intrinsically interesting experience with the content.

Definitely, WoW quest leveling was a huuuuuuge improvement.

Remember back in EQ, you would log in and basically camp mobs respawning every 6 minutes for hours on end. And that's if you were lucky, and didn't choose the ranger class 80 days /played back, and get to sit at the zone line endlessly advertising for a group in /ooc. Over time people forget just how awful EQ truly was.

Yes, it absolutely WAS a huge improvement.  But the point is by now it feels like just as much of a grind as ever.  At this point I have exactly as much patience for WoW style questing as I do for camping spawns.  None.

Or make leveling about increasing your options rather than your power.

That is why I always liked use-based skills rather than levels. Yes, people can macro. So what? people can grind out levels too. Skills allow new players to become narrowly useful relatively quickly, while allowing veteran players to broaden their options.

As for questing vs spawn camping- I am DONE running quests. So dull. I actually miss being able to camp a spawn and make decent progress.

I want to enjoy and see whats going on

Levelling is never going away, for better or for worse.  Too many people tie into that number for achievement that it's staggering (it's amazing how many people complained about getting to max level in GW1 right away, even though by that time you've still only saw 10-15% of the content). 

I'd like to see advancement in questing though.  While I never played WoW at release, questing right now at low levels is a chore to me because they just bombard you with quests that make me have zero desire to actually figure out what's going on.  I literally just created a new level 1 and after the first quest (a "go talk to this guy" quest) I'm immediately bombarded with 3 parallel quests.  I want to enjoy and see whats going on, but I"m not going to read 3 windows of quest text to do it, knowing that once I hand them in I'm going to get blasted with a ton of more text.

Ok, let me rephrase - camping was fun if you were in your group, with your friends/guildmates you liked. Random cockgobblers? Yeah, that was a highly variable experience.

The future of MMOG's really isn't MORE PLAYERS IN MORE PLACES!!!! It's more players in smaller, closer knit groups doing content they feel was made for them. Crafting a boutique experience for smaller, MOBA-sized teams of players should be more important than making a PLAY2CRUSH world where only the ones able to put the most time or real money into the game get to win.

Ok, let me rephrase - camping was fun if you were in your group, with your friends/guildmates you liked

To further rephrase, what you're really saying is "I like hanging out with my friends". It had nothing to do with the actual game.

To further rephrase, what you're really saying is "I like hanging out with my friends". It had nothing to do with the actual game.

Hell getting a group at all was not automatic unless you were one of three out of like fourteen classes.

If you had camping today, most people would be alt-tab'd or doing something else while they played. Back then people were basically stuck doing one thing on their PC.

It was when you "meditated", yes, which was the primary way to regenerate mana. WoW innovated tracking whether the player was "in combat", allowing for different regeneration rates. This is one of its more important improvements to the genre which many people don't recognize, actually. It's what allows you to run around and kill monsters without waiting for extended periods between kills.

None of the designs that have come along the way since have offered much of a reason or opportunity to socialize whil doing your thing.

WELCOME TO CROWFALL.
If you’re here, it’s because you’re looking for something.

Something deeper than a virtual amusement park. More impactful than a virtual sandbox. More immersive. More real. A game where decisions matter.

We are, too. We’ve been looking for years, and we still haven’t found it…. because it doesn’t exist. Yet.

OVER THE NEXT TWO MONTHS, WE'RE GOING TO BE PLAYING A GAME.
It’s not THE game; the name of THIS game is “rampant speculation.” Every few days, we’re going to be dropping hints and teasers for our upcoming new game title. We invite you to jump into our forums and challenge us. Ask questions. Debate our ideas. Make bold pronouncements about what the game might or might not be. By the end, you’ll have an idea what we’re up to… but we’re willing to bet that you’ll still be surprised, once you see it laid out in detail.

(…and if this doesn’t sound interesting to you, no problem. Check back once that timer expires, and all will be revealed with our official product announcement.)

WHO ARE YOU GUYS, AGAIN?
Our company is new, but our team has been doing this for a very long time.

J. Todd Coleman was the Creative Director of Shadowbane, Wizard101 and Pirate101.

Gordon Walton was the Executive Producer of Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, and Star Wars: the Old Republic.

…and that’s just the Founders. The group we’ve brought together includes key members of practically every MMO that you’ve ever played and loved. We know how to build MMOs. Now we want to build something new. Something that’s never been done before.

We started this endeavor for you. Help us make it a (virtual) reality.

Sincerely,

J. Todd Coleman - Gordon Walton

I think a lot of socializing moved to guild chat, voice coms and whatever 3rd party apps people use to chat with friends.  That there's not much time or incentive to socialize with strangers just adds to that.

Back to the OP, you can now sign up for the beta of thisgame, which is called CROWFALL.

http://crowfall.com/

Modern MMO's have optional socializing, the problem is that socializing doesn't happen organically like it once did. Most of the time you have to step outside the game to find others to socialize with. Part of the blame should also be on the behalf of the gaming community, many guilds are extremely insular and almost exclusively recruit through forums instead of meeting people within the game.

That's not to say that its only because of the game and the gaming community, but we old-timers tend to forget how much time it took to create social bonds within games and are very quick to blame it on the game and modern gaming community. The solution to the problem lies within ourselves, and with some effort you will find ways to socialize within most games.

The solution to the problem lies within ourselves, and with some effort you will find ways to socialize within most games.

Modern MMO's have optional socializing, the problem is that socializing doesn't happen organically like it once did. Most of the time you have to step outside the game to find others to socialize with. Part of the blame should also be on the behalf of the gaming community, many guilds are extremely insular and almost exclusively recruit through forums instead of meeting people within the game.

That's not to say that its only because of the game and the gaming community, but we old-timers tend to forget how much time it took to create social bonds within games and are very quick to blame it on the game and modern gaming community. The solution to the problem lies within ourselves, and with some effort you will find ways to socialize within most games.

Is there a reason to go through all this trouble when... servers... already do this?  I guess to prevent the problem of dead/dying servers not having the necessary critical mass of people playing. In any event it doesn't seem like some brilliant design that is going to move use forward, it's just a clever solution to the problem of crappy servers. Which, while related to the issue of social interactions, doesn't seem like one of the core issues more recent MMOs have had regarding the kind of interaction we have been talking about the last couple of pages in this thread.

Lots of responses, but will try to make a general response....First of all, I was a MUD-addict in ages past, but instead of making the jump to evercrack I simply stopped playing. Later on I ended up as a WoW-addict, and nowadays I mostly just spend way too much time on forums.

In WoW, rift and Swtor I became part of gaming community just by playing the game and trying to find others and also did bit raiding with those people. The only thing I did was spend a lot of time socializing with people I grouped with. My big problem with modern themeparks isn't about being social, its that I already played them and find them boring.

As I read the responses I notice that a lot of people feel like game developers should plan ahead to promote socializing but the issue is that you don't know how people will play your game until its there. You can't even be sure about it during beta, because there is a huge difference between the community during beta and the one at release. Game developers constantly try to improve their game, but they have no idea what will happen until after they did the change. Just look at UO with trammel, SWG with holocubes or WoW with dungeon finder. They tried to change their games for the better, and ended up changing gaming communities forever.

In the end what's important is interesting gameplay since that's what makes you play the initial months. While social tools help the most important thing is that you make people work together for a common goal. Once you have common goals its quite easy to find 4-5 others to make a group, and 20-30 to make a raid. Once you got a serious guild of 20-30 its not going to be that hard to cooperate with other guilds.

That's an obvious statement. If a game is good it will transcend the need to have good social tools because they will develop outside the game. Social entanglement increases retention rate. Creating better social tools or dynamics just gives your game a better chance of succeeding.

As far as your statement of 4-5 others and serious guilds etc, it's all depends on your game, and if it's good. Serious raiding is dead. The majority of raiding is done in LFR/Pickup groups in WOW these days anyway from what I understand (correct me if I'm wrong). Games need better "common goals".

The cross server dungeon finder (as well as cross server BGs and presumably LFR) hurt community building a lot in WoW because you never saw the same person twice because the pool is so big. Even if you did meet someone cool who you'd like to invite to your guild (or find a guild you want to join) that's going to cost them cash to server transfer. The devs decided instant action was better than socialization.

I hope they're burning their own money on this.

I hear this all the time but I don't really buy it. I think I met as many new people from my server before and after cross-server dungeon finder; it was fewer people *per run* but the massive improvement in queue times meant you were getting more dungeons per day in so it kind of evened out.

The cross server dungeon finder (as well as cross server BGs and presumably LFR) hurt community building a lot in WoW because you never saw the same person twice because the pool is so big. Even if you did meet someone cool who you'd like to invite to your guild (or find a guild you want to join) that's going to cost them cash to server transfer. The devs decided instant action was better than socialization.

How about and extra 'social' page on your character sheet that details every interaction you have with another player? Make it sortable, searchable, only display chosen parameters, etc. All that data exists. Give it to the players in a usable form and let them track their interactions and do with that information what they will.

You need to be proactive in populating your shards. If you group with someone in your xserver LFD group, then you should see that person in your shard. So when the next time you fill out your LFD group, it should prioritize people that you know in that group more than random people. The game really has to put those people in front of you more often.

If the social vehicle of the game is guilds and raiding it's no accident you get lots of closed little groups.

WoW changed levelling to be convenient and solo, so it got rid of the boring and the need to socialize at the same time.

To my mind City of Heroes and GW2 showed the path to a solution with content that is solo when you are but scales when you are part of a group (formally or not) and makes that scaling beneficial to all involved but not required. Though that brings it's own problems with the encounters and tactics having less identity due to the need to scale.

I'm happy to see a new MMO to follow, but I'm expecting "Vanguard", "Copernicus" or even more likely failed kick-starter when dreams and reality intersect.

Closed little groups are a good thing though. The more tight knit your group, the more you likely you're going to keep playing after you get bored.

It's a trade off.. good for longevity and the dedicated and bad for attracting new players and the casuals.

Levelling is never going away, for better or for worse.  Too many people tie into that number for achievement that it's staggering (it's amazing how many people complained about getting to max level in GW1 right away, even though by that time you've still only saw 10-15% of the content).

This is an interesting point, and possibly bears repeating. I've mentioned this before, but one of the things tried early on in Guild Wars was to remove levelling entirely. Most players didn't like it.

Players need progression. They need to be shown that after X hours of playtime they got somewhere. Whether that is getting more powerful, whether it's getting a new title, whether it's progressing a storyline; it's something. It's a basic principle of gaming. Levels are just the easiest path to do it.

Counter Strike was the most popular multiplayer game in the world for a decade and it had no progression to speak of.  Sure, you have the "progression" of your personal skill, but you have that with any game by default.

Yeah and? Your comparing two different types of games. In any case, doesn't CS:GO have a progression system now?

CS GO has competitive ranking, but it doesn't have progression or unlocks.  It does have random gun skins, but they aren't progression related. 

But the point is, progression isn't necessary for a game to be popular.  Progression is an RPG thing.  But MMO is not the same thing as RPG.  Unfortunately the two were so related for so long that it seems like every MMO has to include RPG style progression.

You literally called progression a "basic principle of gaming."  If you're counting individual player skill as "progression" then fine I guess, but that isn't what we were talking about so it seems like a stretch.  I've been pretty upset about the introduction of those kind of mechanics into other genres (like the shooters you mention).  I think it has no place there.  But then you're saying the practically everything is progression, so at that point why even bother talking about it.  Every mechanic is progression!

We were talking about the leveling as progression in RPGs and how alternative systems might make for more interesting games.  But I guess your reductive way of looking at things means nothing matters, because progression is progression is progression.  

So let's be specific: What I want is games that have far less emphasis on my character increasing arbitrarily in power based on how long I've played the game.

I've always wondered why you couldn't have more Zelda-esque  MMO "progression"- i.e., not really based on levels or even skill-ups, but based on soft gating factors (you need the boomerang to open the next dungeon, etc.).  The dream MMO in my head is a steampunk/fantasy pirate airship MMO inspired by Skies of Arcadia and Wind Waker.  Have a very low amount of NPC difficulty scale-up, but gate some of the air islands (or some of the content on every otherwise explorable island) with gadgets, etc. that you can only get on the other side of the universe.   Expand characters sideways in a TF2 or Battlefield sort of way, but even a starting character could see (and fight) a lot of the universe without a need for hundreds of hours of levelups or skillups.

I've always wondered why you couldn't have more Zelda-esque  MMO "progression"- i.e., not really based on levels or even skill-ups, but based on soft gating factors (you need the boomerang to open the next dungeon, etc.).  The dream MMO in my head is a steampunk/fantasy pirate airship MMO inspired by Skies of Arcadia and Wind Waker.  Have a very low amount of NPC difficulty scale-up, but gate some of the air islands (or some of the content on every otherwise explorable island) with gadgets, etc. that you can only get on the other side of the universe.   Expand characters sideways in a TF2 or Battlefield sort of way, but even a starting character could see (and fight) a lot of the universe without a need for hundreds of hours of levelups or skillups.

Sooooo

You want a whole game based around attunements?

That's obviously true, but that just means gamers don't actually turn out to like what we used to call MMOs, not that MMO now includes everything with persistence.  Which is, like, every game in the world.

I wish the debates around here would have some progression.  :awesome_for_real:

Yes, but not in a linear progression sense.  More of a situation where there are fifty possible attunements, but they all unlock oddments here or there on otherwise explorable areas.  Again, think zelda hammer or boomerang type stuff.

All mmos have attunement. Attunements are just hard points in progression. You need level x before heroic dungeons. You need some ilevel for a raid or dungeon. I never understood why people disliked attunments as a general rule.

I mean sure, some attunments are stupid and a pain in the ass, but so is a really steep leveling curve or shitty kill 10 rat quests.

Because people associate it with long seemingly unrelated quest chains that they had to complete in vanilla WoW so they could do the raids.

Now you have to put points into fireball range, fireball diameter, fireball damage.  Ow, I think I just got cancer.

The ultimate troll would be that a completely maxxed out fireball spell that takes 2,000 hours to achieve actually has a blast radius so big it kills you on cast.

I would like all old people to immediately stop. What you ask? Everything.

No cancer meds for you!   :geezer:

I see they have a hunger resistance stat, which implies that you'll have to spend time keeping yourself fed.  I can't see that being fun, but then I don't think I'm their target audience.

I want to be whatever the fat animal the sword is covering is.

Civ V has the Ottoman Empire.

I'm stag-man, all the way.

All these years and nobody thought to anthropomorphize deer in a RPG! It's a brave new world opening in front of us, gentlemen.

(Asian furgames do not count, please do not post counterexamples.)

I'm ready for an MMO that just trolls the user base.  No levels, just periodic stat increases that are accompanied by a level up sound.  The numbers are hidden, no one knows how much a stat increases certain skills, and even if you parse that shit, each point in a stat yields different gains.  Even better, make the gain RNG.  You can even subdivide and micromanage skills.  Put a point into fireball?  Ok, you did that 10 times already?  Now you have to put points into fireball range, fireball diameter, fireball damage.  Ow, I think I just got cancer.

So Eve Online?  :why_so_serious:

Hey look, an actual screenshot (http://community.crowfall.com/index.php?/topic/641-011315-character-creation-preview/)

Fuck that style. They probably found the only way to drive me off a hardcore PvP MMO.

Fuck that style. They probably found the only way to drive me off a hardcore PvP MMO.

DAOC did it first again.  :why_so_serious:

It's not wrong or right, it's a matter of personal taste. I *personally* DETEST & DESPISE what in the western hemisphere seems to be known as "cartoon style".

I'm actually quite the opposite.  That route tells me they aren't so wedded to "realism" that can't be achieved with a low budget anyway that they could actually have some sense as a development team.

Or maybe the game will just suck either way.  Yeah, it's probably this one.  I can't see a game called Crowfall doing well.

In a hardcore pvp mmo, anything that produces a non slideshow is by definition great.

This might seem an odd question, but what is "cartoon style" called in non-western places?

When the alternative is all too often the soulless crap of EQ2/Vanguard et al, I'll go for the WoW/Torchlight-inspired look every time.

This coming from a guy in love with SMITE's graphics. Beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder.

Not in love. I think it's good and on par when not better than similar and more popular games, and so are the animations. If you say "graphics and animations are terrible" (which is what you said) that calls for a reality check, especially since you are apparently questioning the quality and not the style.

EDIT: Also, thanks for mentioning SMITE which is one out of a possible million examples of how to make colourful and not-so-realistic graphics that don't have much in common neither with EQ2 and Vanguard nor with WoW and cartoons. There's a lot of in-betweens you know? It's sad when no one even tries anymore.

In recent times Guild Wars 2, Elder Scrolls Online or even Archeage proved that you don't need shitty graphics to have 100+ people on screen butchering each other.

Also, thanks for mentioning SMITE which is one out of a possible million examples of how to make colourful and not-so-realistic graphics that don't have much in common neither with EQ2 and Vanguard nor with WoW and cartoons. There's a lot of in-betweens you know? It's sad when no one even tries anymore.

I dislike MMOs that chase the "realism" graphics because of logistical issues, and because it ends up looking really dated in the span of 5 years. At which point they have to waste time updating it. Also graphics whoooooooooooooooores.  :why_so_serious:

No MMO has been a slideshow even with lots of people on screen since... Age of Conan and Aion? 2008? That was SEVEN years ago. In recent times Guild Wars 2, Elder Scrolls Online or even Archeage proved that you don't need shitty graphics to have 100+ people on screen butchering each other. The "slideshow" excuse is old and belongs to ancient times. You should stop believing it.

More sizzle (http://community.crowfall.com/index.php?/topic/740-011515-templars-champions-and-a-cryptic-tree/)

Pictures of a couple more classes, plus their guild crests (or whatever they are) arranged in a "tree".

At least these guys had some art ready to go before they made their announcement  :why_so_serious:

Now this is hardkore  :uhrr:

(http://i.imgur.com/0PMjbOh.png)

How is trying to make sb2 not taking chances?

I guess I'll give it the hometown benefit of the doubt for now, then.

Whoa Raph is in on this? why isn't he here!

Raph only answers questions about Meatspace and guitar. Possibly fish.

I would be highly disappointed if I learned that discussions with Raph and the other Crowfall devs did not at least once contain the phrase "We're getting the band back together!"

Has there been a HAM joke yet? I feel like there should be a HAM joke in here somewhere.

Still missing Rich Vogel.

You're still not supposed to be interested.

a "game" that's the spiritual successor to every MMO ever

What are they going to do to prevent the wolves from driving away the sheep away? If the answer is nothing, then I know exactly where this game is heading, a big smoking crater.

Even if I lose, the experience won’t feel hollow. I don’t want another worthless trophy.

If a game like this set their sights at 100k subs to make their money? They'll be just fine. If they set the mark at a million (which seems to be the goal of all stupid companies who don't realize they are niche and not WoW) they will burn.

I think if they are thinking subs they already failed.

Agreed; although you could argue that the aforementioned 40k-100k is so niche, dedicated and starving for a game like this  that they will gladly support the game with a sub ($7 - $9 per month would be reasonable, not $15 :P).

I'd much prefer this kind of model.  I've yet to play a F2P MMO that kept my attention and didn't annoy me with the pricing model.  Hell, if 10 bucks a month is what you need from me to run the game, then just charge me 10 bucks a month and let me play.

This is pretty much the last gasp of "we can make a meaningful MMO" crowd.

This is pretty much the last gasp of "we can make a meaningful MMO" crowd.

As such, I will appreciate watching the dating, honeymoon, marriage and divorce with f13 play out, drink in hand.

Interesting article on crafting- http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/1214/feature/9325/Improving-Upon-Star-Wars-Galaxies-Crafting.html/page/1

I wonder if the formula here is full loot PvP+easily craftable armor (that eventually completely deteriorates) to continually supply replacements.  Sort of like how everyone in UO had 20 replacement sets of armor in the bank. 

I want to play a game like this just as a crafter, for a front row seat of schadenfreude.

Interesting article on crafting- http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/1214/feature/9325/Improving-Upon-Star-Wars-Galaxies-Crafting.html/page/1

And I don't see why these people (Raph) can't do the same thing here since they did it there.

I had a monopoly on perfect quality corn in SWG on my server.

Turns out that never mattered.

Fucking corn.

Let's back up, you kind of had to be a crafter in SWG. If you were playing it and not crafting, I put forward that you were playing SW:G wrong. The rest of the game was awful.

I made droids.  It was awful too. Immersive and interesting, but awful.

Prediction: Melee will suck in pvp.  :why_so_serious:

That wasn't really true in sb though.

We need an updated stages of grief for a game with this crowd.

We start by hating it
Then move to talking about stuff that is reminiscent
Then move to Well maybe if this happens
Then get sorta up for it
Then get in beta
Then hate it again and predict failure for all involved.

"We think Crowfall is a very different flavor of MMO – internally, we call it a Throne War Simulator."

Not enough popcorn in the world.

There should be a reality show about the making of this game.

Start at step 6. Its 2015, not 2008.

So updated for 2015:

Hate it and predict failure.
Make a 30 page thread about how stupid it looks.
Pledge money, more or less secretely.
Have people sign up for the beta to mock it.
Keep the hate flowing.
Watch the fallout at release.

I don't think there's enough to make the game viable, but there are certainly enough for popcorn.

They're just not here. Everyone here knows better.

I am going to kick the shit out of this football this time. I swear.

You never know, this could be wildly popular. Maybe Shadowbane was just way ahead of its time and meaningful PvP plus a soupçon of SWG crafting equals the next League of Legends. Doubtful, but not a zero chance.

There hasn't been that many footballs for this Charlie Brown to kick though in the last ten years.

Cynicism is necessary, and yes this game will probably fail spectacularly because it's so much easier to fail than to succeed in this industry that even statistics is against it. But how many games of this kind have been attempted since 2003?

Seriously? Are we seriously going to do this again?

A lot of cool stuff they wanted to do in 1999 might be feasible now with hardware and software advances. Hollywood as been telling the same stories for 100+ years and are making more money than ever.

Shadowbane didn't just have technical failures, it had human nature failures. Human nature hasn't changed.  People don't pay to be victimized. When it takes 5 hours to destroy 5 weeks of work, people find something to do with their time. If given a chance to ruin other people fun, they will do so with glee. No polygon counts, no cloud computing, no broadband modem changes that. How people really play (not how idealist designers imagine they should) has to be accounted for or you are just retreading doomed history.

Yeah, SB obviously had technical problems, but I really don't see why that's pertinent to this discussion about an entirely new game.

A lot of cool stuff they wanted to do in 1999 might be feasible now with hardware and software advances.

How can you and some other keep posting these things over and over again, in every single thread that barely mention open world PvP with lootable bodies, without getting bored of yourself and your own fingertips hitting the same keys? I guess you like it that way.

Because I want to see advances in this area. Any game designs that allow the playerbase to cannibalize itself without any attempt at migrating isn't advancing anything.

Well isn't that difference between good design and bad design? Your arguement has nothing to do with PVP games.

I don't play EVE, how do they address that problem? My understanding is that it's the wild west.

I believe spies join the megaguild, become officers, and then loot its bank and involuntarily disband it.  Maybe devs can do that periodically.

Q: Do you have boss monsters?

A: Sort of.  Not exactly.
We have creatures that are incredibly deadly, but they don’t hang out at the end of a dungeon waiting for you to come kill them.  They also don’t drop rare magic items when defeated – because that would undercut the player-driven economy.
Instead, they sometimes drop rare reagents, which a master crafter can use as additives to craft high-end equipment.

How to solve the problem that it is usually easier to gank someone for their resources than gather your own?

No inventory drop upon death solves that.

No inventory drop upon death solves that.

How to solve the problem that it is usually easier to gank someone for their resources than gather your own?

Yeah, that is sorta the reason for people to kill each other.

Obviously, the lack of hat looting is why TF2 failed to catch on.

What does that have anything to do with anything? You just said "make sure you make your game fun at it's core". Bravo. That can be applied to any single conversation about a game. His argument was "we don't need full loot pvp because this shooter fps game over here doesn't have it." Which is stupid.

Do people stick around in PvE MMOs when the combat is good and the loot isn't?

Even with good combat, the majority of people leave MMOs and start calling it "grindy" if they don't get rewarded for their performances.

Has there ever been a PvE MMO with good combat?

TERA.

TERA was PVE? I certainly never played it that way.

And I quit because there wasn't an endgame, and there still isn't an endgame. It doesn't matter how fun the combat is if there's nothing to do.

See TERA, GW2, etc.

See also the upcoming Black Desert.

- Love the "light on in-combat healing" decision, but I hope "light" doesn't mean "none."  

No, his argument wasn't that.  His argument was that people will PvP even when full loot isn't involved if the combat is good.

So what? I don't see the point. People play games for different reasons and incentives. People play multiple games for different reasons. Some people play both Hearthstone and MTG. Some people play HOTS and LOL. What the fuck does that argument even mean.

Ya, combat should be fun, but by how's standards? Twitching McRedbull and Mr. EmpireBuilder probably have different views of what is fun.

So play2crush isn't actually a thing with Crowfall. 100% consensual PvP isn't the answer anymore than 0% is. But at this game won't be DoA.

Quit it with the pointless fat aggression and hostility, particularly when you're being willfully retarded.

No sane developer makes a game for both Mr McRedbull and Mr EmpireBuilder ...

What's fat aggression anyway? Are you calling me fat, or are you saying I have a lot of aggression. More so than the normal amount that you find on these message boards?

Maybe you are being Cartman-esque?

Sane or rational, really. Dreamers and True Believers think they can do it all the time.

Which always brings me the joy of watching you guys salivate over yet another doomed-to-fail 'open world' MMO.

Good lord...14 pages for this shit??? :facepalm:  This is going to crash and burn just like every other attempt to resurrect the glory days of UO and Shadowbane.  End of story.

Good lord...14 pages for this shit??? :facepalm:  This is going to crash and burn just like every other attempt to resurrect the glory days of UO and Shadowbane.  End of story.

Blade & Soul might have good combat. I am trying it right now and I'll report about it. But I have to say: it probably falls in the same identical package TERA did. In fact, NC sued Bluehole because as far as I know an ex NC soft employee made TERA out of stuff that was supposed to go into NC's next project, originally Lineage 3, then morphed into Blade & Soul. It shouldn't be surprising they are similar.

But since we are on topic, it's important to underline that the best combat in MMOs have been made in South Korea for the last 5 years. See also the upcoming Black Desert. One big difference with Western releases though could be tracked back to the fact that Korean MMOs seem to be mostly client-sided, which leaves lots of holes to hacking but allows to do beautiful responsive combat, while Western releases try to prevent hacking by doing running most of the stuff on the server, which of course slows things down.

Perhaps I can introduce you to the 102 page TESO thread, a game we declared on page 2 would be shit. http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=14548.0

And it's not?

Today is the turning point – where we start to separate away from the herd.  Unfortunately (but inevitably) that means we’re going to turn some people off today.  But hopefully those of you who stick around will be here for the long haul.

About a decade ago, I was the creative director on a game called “Shadowbane.”  Shadowbane had a lot of flaws, but the vision is still something that I am very proud of.  The Wolfpack founders (of which I am one) came up with something innovative – really innovative.  It’s surprising how rare that is, even in the game space.
Unfortunately, the vision was also flawed.  SB had tons of technical and operational issues, yes, but that’s not what I am talking about.  I’m talking about the crack in the foundation of the design:
 
At its heart, SB was a strategy game.  And strategy games can’t last forever.

In Shadowbane, I called this phenomenon server stagnation.  The game is incredibly fun – right up until someone wins.  Then, without a server reset, the game stagnates and everyone quits.
 
One of the key elements of strategy games is they have a win condition followed by a board reset.  You start the game, you play the game, someone wins.  You reset the board and start a new game.
One of the key elements of MMOs is that they are persistent.  Actually, that’s not the right word, is it?  They’re permanent.  Players expect to play them over years, and the game world is (generally) static.
 
These two design goals seem diametrically opposed: the game must reset and the game must last forever.
Can they be married together?  I think they can.

What if characters are persistent/permanent – but the Worlds are not?
What if your character exists outside of any given Campaign, and can join new matches once a match is over?

This opens up a whole new world of design possibilities.

- Characters are permanent, and advance over the course of many Campaigns.  This gives you the feeling of persistence that we’ve come to expect from MMOs.
- Campaigns, though, aren’t permanent.  They still be “persistent” between game sessions – but they don’t last forever.
- How long should the last?  As long as the game is still fun!  And they don’t all have to be the same duration.  Some Campaigns could last 1 week, or 1 month.  or 6 months.  or 1 year.
- These Campaigns aren’t just “instances”, though -- they are fully populated, continent-sized, seamless zone MMO servers.  The only thing they have in common with an “instance” is that they are time-limited.
- Because each Campaign is marching towards an end condition, this means that the World doesn’t have to be static anymore. We can break the Campaign into different “phases”, and adjust the rules of the game change during each phase.  We can allow the players to fundamentally change the world, without fear of the long term problems this might create.
- Why not make each Campaign unique?  Why can’t each one have a completely unique world map (mountains, forests, lakes, castles, villages, quarries, mines, mills – you name it)?  The “exploration” phase of the game can be different in each Campaign.  The world will never be stale.
- To that point: since each game is a stand-alone event, we can even change the rules (and win conditions) of each Campaign.  We can experiment with different rules, to see which ones are more popular – and keep the game continually fresh.

So, how do you explain this?
 
The Hunger.  The Hunger is a mysterious, destructive force that spreads from one world to the next, like an infection – twisting and corrupting everything it touches.  Eventually, the Hunger consumes the World itself, and it is destroyed.
 Players take the roles of Divine Champions, immortal participants in the War of the Gods.  They join the Campaigns to scavenge the Dying Worlds for relics, resources and glory.
 
A Campaign might look like this:
 
* Phase 1 is Spring.  The Campaign map is hidden by fog of war.  You are dropped (typically naked) into an unknown, deadly environment.  This world is filled with the ruins of ancient castles, abandoned mines and haunted villages – which you have to explore to scavenge for weapons, tools and the resources to start building fortifications.
 
* Phase 2 is Summer.  The Hunger starts to infect the creatures.  Resources become scarce.  Your team claims an abandoned quarry and must fight to keep it.  You use the stone to build an ancient keep, to use it as staging areas to attack their neighbors.
 
* Phase 3 is Fall.  The creatures become more deadly as the Hunger takes hold.  Resources are heavily contested and transporting them is fraught with peril.  Your guild frantically builds a wall around your city, as the nature of conflict shifts from smaller skirmishes to siege warfare.
 
* Phase 4 is Winter.  The environment is brutal.  Warmth is hard to come by.  Your kingdoms grows in strength; your neighbors falter and you demand that they swear fealty or face complete loss of the Campaign.  Instead, a handful of smaller kingdoms choose to band together against you.
 
* Phase 5 is Victory and Defeat.  The World is destroyed in a cataclysmic event as the Campaign comes to an end.  Your Kingdom emerges victorious, and you return to the Eternal Kingdoms to enjoy the spoils of war.   Your adversaries head home, too -- to lick their wounds.



(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/CROW%20Crowfall_HungerEffectConcept.jpg)



No one quits.  Instead, both groups strategize on how to dominate the next Campaign.
 
This is the experience we are trying to create.  Even if I lose, it won’t feel hollow.
We saw a similar pattern emerge during the SB beta… by accident, not design.  Occasionally, changes to the game design would require us to wipe the world.  Every time it happened, I was worried that players would quit the game. Instead, we saw incredibly high peak concurrency numbers after each wipe.  Every time.  The “land rush” to grab the key positions in the new world was incredibly alluring.  If the world map was unique, I expect it would have been even more popular.
 
The downside of this approach is that we don’t want the universe to feel too transitory.  That’s why we added the Eternal Kingdoms: super-sized player and guild housing Worlds.  Trophy rooms that you can use as a “lobby” between matches/campaigns.
 (To make sure these Worlds don’t compete with the “main” game, i.e. the Campaign Worlds, we’ve completely stripped them of resource factories and anything but common reagents.  If you want to fill your trophy room, you have to go out and earn it.)
 
This is the foundational change that we’ve made.  Crowfall isn’t an MMO with a “battle ground” strapped to the end of the level treadmill.  Crowfall isn’t a three-way tug of war that never resets.  It’s a real blend of a strategy game and an MMO.
 
There’s more (a LOT more) to come, but it all starts with this basic idea:
 
Eternal Heroes, Dying Worlds.
 
Todd
ACE

I wish the reset was based on a win condition rather than time. Still, sounds interesting.

I wish the reset was based on a win condition rather than time. Still, sounds interesting.

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.

Basically, how to design a PvP game where fickle average-lame-players keep fighting until the end of the campaign?

Basically, how to design a PvP game where fickle average-lame-players keep fighting until the end of the campaign?

The only thing we know is that it's not going to be free to play. We don't know if it's going to be box only, or box+subscription. I would bet on box + smaller than usual subscription. Or box + optional subscription. I would be surprised if there were no sub at all.

And yes, again, the only thing that really worries me and that they have to come up with something really good is how to push people to keep fighting when they are losing and the end is near.

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.

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.

'omg stahp, pls stahp dolan"

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"

'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...

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" :why_so_serious:

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?

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

- 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.

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

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.

We've invested our savings and went without salaries for over a year to get this venture started. We took this risk, and our families supported us in doing it, because we fundamentally believe that there is an audience for this vision.

Horrible echoes of McQuaid!
Anyway, statistically in the USA how many times does that usually pay out, and how many times leaves you bankrupt and everyone you hired unemployed?

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.

List the 10 investors? Need to know who is addicted to gambling and making risky bets in gaming.

Back to (potential) gameplay- how are solo players handled? What is in it for them? If all the big picture stuff is solely guild v guild that is not going to go over so well with the casual solo crowd. Sure, not the prime audience, but the more of them you can attract the better chance the game has of not flopping.

Solo players get gang-banged until they join a guild.

BACKSTORY

I had a brother, once… for a few minutes. I think I was born first?

The Farewell Kiss is swift and painless. We are not monsters, after all. No one needs to suffer.

Some mothers cry. Some plead for assistance. My mother did neither.

For generations, this has been our practice. For generations, we have known peace.

Men do not belong in the Riverlands…. not even the breeders. They are captured, they serve their purpose, and they are killed. Many treat their enemies less kindly, I think.

Think of the worst tyrant in history. How many lives could have been saved – how many wars averted – by a sharp blade, at the moment of his birth?

Why did I say HIS birth?

You know why. When I asked you to think of a tyrant, no woman crossed your mind. One life, for many. Quite the bargain, yes?

I say to you: the Hunger is not your enemy. Your enemy walks among you, charming and handsome, with a tongue full of lies.

If you can get 200,000 subs for $10 each

That shouldn't be that hard.

OK so what's reasonable for you people? 100k? 50k?

I mean you realize the market expanded right? This isn't EQ of 2001.

The market has expanded, but subscription based games aren't the hotness anymore.  200,000 subscribers at 10 bucks a month sustained for an entire year would strike me as an absolutely HUGE success story for this game.

You have to have an actual working game (to some degree / lol early access) to really make money. Let's get there first.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

You are creating something that just doesn't exist today. And it's funny how on f13 you can have pages and pages where the majority keeps saying that NO ONE wants to play a full loot pvp game, then all of a sudden a few pop up saying 200k subs are possible. 200k players wlling to pay monthly for THIS kind of game?! There aren't 200k players that would play it for free. There aren't even 200k players that would play it if they got paid 10$ a month to do it. We (those who love this kind of games) have been saying it for a long time, and even recently, in this and other threads. You can't just decide that YEAH WHY NOT?! Because not. There are not 200k players willing to play2crush. I really believe things could be different in five years or so, but right now they just don't exist and I really hope the people making Crowfall don't believe the two of you.

It is irrelevant if Final Fantasy or SWTOR make a billion subs a month. First of all you are comparing IPs like Final Fantasy and Star Wars to... Crowfall. Shame on you. Second, you are comparing studios like Square Enix and Bioware to... Todd Coleman & friends. Are you serious?

So yes, if they somehow made an awesome game, eventually the play2crush market could grow into some bigger numbers. But considering where they are starting from, the little funds and the negative bias people have about these games, it's insane to think they could aspire to anything more than 50k subs at first. In fact, that would probably be a miraculous success.

The Crowfall site has a trio of goodies for fans today. The first comes in the form of the first revealed spell caster called the Confessor. The Confessor's page has a small, but interesting, back story as well as both male and female screenshots.

The second treat is a rather large lore article that gives the first information about the origins of the known Universe, and a look at Valkyn's children. Called "War of the Gods Part 1, it can be read here.

Lastly, potential players get the first information about the pricing model that Crowfall will utilize in a new FAQ. Crowfall will be a "buy once, play forever" game. According to estimations, the price will hover around the $50 mark but optional VIP membership will be offered for $15 a month. Benefits of VIP include:

-“Behind the scenes” access to the development of the game
-VIP members can use passive training for all 3 character slots (not just 1)
-Priority access to all game servers
-VIP frame / badge on the forums
-Discount pricing on any purchases
-Other cool (non-balance affecting) benefits as we think of them!

Additionally, players can trade goods and services to other players and attain VIP status. At this time, the pricing model is for North America only until such time as international publication rights are purchased.

Hopefully VIP will be purchasable with in game currency as well.

I am assuming "buy cosmetic items" means "buy hypercrates" or "buy keys and have a 1% chance at a rare hat effect."  Lottery tickets fly off the cash shop faster than known quantities.

The list of asshats working on this doesn't worry you?

Raph's an asshat now?

If only I could dredge up my remarks about some of the UO decisions in alpha/beta. I've had it out for him since he was known as DD, not by first name.

I didn't sign up for the beta.

I signed up for their forums, which are already providing more entertainment than Crowfall (the game) ever likely will.  :why_so_serious:

I didn't sign up for the beta.

I signed up for their forums, which are already providing more entertainment than Crowfall (the game) ever likely will.  :why_so_serious:

Why is this important for Crowfall?

Crowfall is a mix of an MMORPG and a strategy game.

You know that feeling you get, the first time you log in to a new game – that rush of exploration and mystery? The sense of excitement that comes during first turn of a game like Civilization – the urgency to explore, to expand, to conquer? that’s the emotion that we want, every time you enter a new Campaign World.

One of the things that can make a strategy game grow stale is knowledge of the game board. If players learn that the key to winning is to always “take control of point A” and “avoid the choke point at B,” it makes subsequent games less interesting.

By using an algorithmic approach to create new game Worlds at the “push of a button,” Crowfall can keep the players constantly guessing and keep the game feeling new.

There are teeming masses of people ready and willing to pay $15/month for the next great MMO. Problem is, nobody released it!

I don't know if this is true.  There are masses of people that will pay 15 bucks a month for a great/popular/iconic MMO.  Let's not forget that WoW became a pop culture thing for a while, not just a good MMO.  Soccer moms were playing WoW.  Are soccer moms "waiting for the next great MMO"?  I doubt it.  But they'll play it if it becomes a "thing."  A confluence of things are needed to reach that tier of popularity and even being a great game isn't enough.

There are masses of people that will pay 15 bucks a month for a great/popular/iconic MMO.  Let's not forget that WoW became a pop culture thing for a while, not just a good MMO.  Soccer moms were playing WoW.  Are soccer moms "waiting for the next great MMO"?  I doubt it.  But they'll play it if it becomes a "thing."  A confluence of things are needed to reach that tier of popularity and even being a great game isn't enough.

Not sure if SWToR was sarcasm or not... so just in case I'll counter with ESO, DDO, and any number of games that have switched from a sub model to f2p or f2p with an optional value-added sub.

WoW numbers are still larger than FF14 by a significant margin.  Ard pointed it out to me last night, but the fact that nearly everyone forgets it exists emphasizes my point that no one is going to look to it as a model to emulate.

Business belief and consumer psychology will ensure the subscription model won't be dominant for a long time, if ever again.  It's not viable for a mass-appeal game on either side of the equation so you're really unlikely to see it unless it's a game that takes risks in a lot of other areas as well.  And for some reason, money men don't like risks.

People are generally Ok with subscriptions, it's the barrier of entry that causes the loss of players which is a box price.

Not sure if SWToR was sarcasm or not... so just in case I'll counter with ESO, DDO, and any number of games that have switched from a sub model to f2p or f2p with an optional value-added sub.

$15 required subscription.

From what I've read SWTOR has just under a half million subs and close to 2 million players overall.

People are generally Ok with subscriptions, it's the barrier of entry that causes the loss of players which is a box price.

Your 500k subs and 2 million players was 4-6 months after fremium launch which was two years ago. There are no new numbers because EA likes the image that swtor turned to a popular game ever since it transitioned to fremium model.

Our two models boil down to:

(X)  vs.  (X + Y + Z + W)

15. Does that mean that I can be hit by friendly fire?

Wherever possible, yes -- but we have to make sure that this is balanced. Some rules sets (like the infected worlds, which are Faction based) divide players automatically into teams. We have to make sure that players can't join teams specifically to take advantage of friendly fire to grief their own "teammates."

Our plan is to try and apply debuffs to players for doing damage to or killing their teammates (the gods curse you for your incompetence). If this proves not to be a good enough deterrent, however, we may have to turn friendly fire off for particular Campaign worlds.

fenrisddevil, on 19 Feb 2015 - 10:32 AM, said:
So we were right, FF is active only on the FFA server. While some debuffs might substitute (or not) friendly fire on carebears shards.

I'm not entirely sure how you can read an FAQ that mentions the possibility of turning off friendly fire on 1 or 2 of the announced rulesets, and to you that translates to "only FFA has friendly fire".
 
Make no mistake, we'll be working and testing this area heavily and we'll find what works best for each campaign ruleset. We might find a way to execute it well on all of them, we may not.
 
It's best not to jump to hyperbolic conclusion's when we're being very forward and open with our thinking with you on this.