Camelot Unchained

[Furiously]

Aaaaaand...they're funded.  With 19 hours to go even.

Wow. How did that happen?

DAOC nostalgists, and friends/family of employees.

[luckton]

Is this the part where Jacobs comes into the thread and says "HA HA, BITCHES!  GOT MY MONEY!"?   

[Tannhauser]

If he put out a full game with the feel and gameplay of Tier I WAR I'd buy that for a dollar.  But...yeah.

[Threash]

Wasn't that the idea behind that canceled arena game?

[Tannhauser]

Maybe I should've played that then. I'm not a PVP guy, but Tier I was some of the best PVP I've experienced. 

[Hutch]

Is this the part where Jacobs comes into the thread and says "HA HA, BITCHES!  GOT MY MONEY!"?   

One possible response:
Money is not a game. Come back when you have a finished game.

[Teleku]

I think the implication is that he's just taking the money and running.  No game intended.

[HaemishM]

Wasn't that the idea behind that canceled arena game?

It was the idea. The idea just turned out to be complete shit when made by 3-star talent.

[Merusk]

Nah, they just tried really hard to make it more than the lobby game it wanted to be, as Kall has pointed out for us. Recall he worked on that one.

[KallDrexx]

Nah, they just tried really hard to make it more than the lobby game it wanted to be, as Kall has pointed out for us. Recall he worked on that one.

Nope I worked on Fury.

But by that notion if they are accepting a subscription then they'd have to make Camelot Unchained into something more than a lobby game. 

[Merusk]

I missed that at some point someone was trying an Arena PVP game based on WAR.  I hear "arena PVP" and still thing of Fury. My mistake.

[KallDrexx]

I missed that at some point someone was trying an Arena PVP game based on WAR.  I hear "arena PVP" and still thing of Fury. My mistake.

No worries.  Camelot Unchained will fail for the same reason Fury failed, why EA ultimately canned the WAR arena game (hell they had the ability for a lot of code and asset re-use too to make it cheaper), why exteel is no longer around, and why that one arena game released recently on steam (Forge I think) is flailing around with complaints of lack of players. 

A centrally hosted MMO arena game is doomed to failure, and it's clear to everyone except idiot investors and the idiot DAOC fanatics that threw money at the kickstarter.

[Draegan]

Well to be fair, Forge was a pretty shitty game. Fury was actually kind of fun but poorly designed from what I remember. I just don't think the MMO Arena game has been made properly yet. Don't ask me how though. You have to someone take MOBAs and MMORPGs and combine them and convince people that they should just go play the game they came from because it's ultimately better.

MMORPG Arena games need stickiness, so just a map/battleground type of system will probably fail. This might mean that instead of a map that lasts 5-10 minutes, you need one that lasts 1-7 days.

You need a progression system, levels and gear, but something that you can easily jump in and out of.

Classes have to be simple with a limited action bar. I think Neverwinter's setup is perfect, including the combat mechanics/style. This ties into the MOBA style of things. With limited class layouts, and shallow class development, you can keep adding in new "heroes" as the game ages".

Armchair dev time because I'm bored.  Here's my game:

Picture Alterac Valley from WOW 1.0. The map will be designed to last 1-7 days (however you do that). You get your stickiness here. This includes PVE objectives to gain gear, unlock buffs, your side boss, your side's upgrades etc. Everything from the original AV.

Inside that week of gameplay you can level your character and collect gear. Gear is a limited resource in this game. The more rare items are unique to the map so only. The less rare they item is the more of them that are available. You now have a progression system with builds. Leveling is pretty easy and fast and what you're really doing is hunting gear to fight better with. The game is also full loot, but loot is readily available.

Now since the game is designed to last 1-7 days, and leveling is fast and gear is plentiful, you have a short progression system, you have an arms race and you have PVP tossed in. However since games do not last that long, you can jump in and out of them and gear/levels is transient and their loss is not very harsh.

The things you can play around with are things like once you join a map can you quit and find another one mid-fight or are you locked in?

Anyway, I think that game would be successful if it's either buy to play, or you pay something like a $5 subscription. I can't think of cash-shop items unless you want to make classes a paid for thing.

[Falconeer]

If we decide not to count MOBAs, the closest thing to centrally hosted arena MMOs, and most succesful, are probaby World of Tanks and Mechwarrior. In a way, they prove that there's definitely a market out there. Somehow, it's just not really working with fireballs, swords, elves and a third person view yet.

EDIT to add: I think GW1 got really close to nail down the concept, which could have easily made into a standalone. It's astonishing that they failed so bad with the sequel.

[ezrast]

Uh, Bloodline Champions.

[KallDrexx]

If we decide not to count MOBAs, the closest thing to centrally hosted arena MMOs, and most succesful, are probaby World of Tanks and Mechwarrior. In a way, they prove that there's definitely a market out there. Somehow, it's just not really working with fireballs, swords, elves and a third person view yet.

EDIT to add: I think GW1 got really close to nail down the concept, which could have easily made into a standalone. It's astonishing that they failed so bad with the sequel.

There are too many unknowns to say that GW1 nailed down the concept in such a way that would have worked stand-alone.  I played in the high up GW1 pvp scene back in the hey days, and as much as many of them bitched about it they still participated in a lot of PvE stuff every once and a while.  The PVE was pivotal for the stickyness that the PVP side required because it meant that if you were feeling meh about actually doing the PVP that day you still had something in the game to do, which then lent towards "hey we are doing XYZ come join us" and convinced to do PVP.  That whole dynamic wouldn't exist if it was PVP only, and based on other games that have tried I do believe it would have failed pretty hard if it didn't have this stickyness.

Well to be fair, Forge was a pretty shitty game. Fury was actually kind of fun but poorly designed from what I remember. I just don't think the MMO Arena game has been made properly yet. Don't ask me how though. You have to someone take MOBAs and MMORPGs and combine them and convince people that they should just go play the game they came from because it's ultimately better.

Fury had a lot of very poor design decisions, and anyone that remembers me back in the day will know I will criticize the game as much as any regular player (probably more because I know the behind the scenes crap and know how that the leads were douchebags who suck at making games or knowing what makes a game fun).    However, the "well games X, Y, and Z all had major design flaws, but I am awesome enough that I can do better" is a good way to head straight for failure (and I think is what Marc Jacobs truly believes).

Persistence is a good way to help the stickyness issue, but that persistence has to make sense.  Your ideas for a 1-7 day map only works for games like Planetside, where everyone is able to fight anyone and there is no concept of servers (that counts out Fury, World of Tanks, MOBAs, Exteel, etc....).  GW2 WvW also disagrees that a limited time persistence (1-7 days) has it's drawbacks with motivation when you know the server will just reset all of your progress.  It also affects your morale when you are getting stomped and just decide to wait for the server reset to hope things will be more even (instead of wasting time trying to make things even yourself).

[Hoax]

Pretty sure Exsteel failed because it was unplayable due to lag which was the problem with so many of these types of games in 2000-2010. They are picked up by such bottom feeding companies who just can't afford or don't bother to pay for decent bandwidth. I'd imagine the cost of bandwidth is going down though so hopefully as we slowly all get google fiber or its existence forces comcast and others to stop being giant fuckers the environment for arena games will improve.

Rumble Fighter is still kicking though its smaller now for sure, pretty sure Gunbound is still around too. World of Tanks is obviously quite successful. There have been lots of them that without lag and with better translations/localization would probably have done fine. Infinity Online was great but got fucked up by splitting the EU/NA community, lag and there have been many others like that where the company running the NA/EU release couldn't get out of their own way enough for the game to have a chance.

As I said in the PoE thread, other devs need to take note of the race idea from PoE the concept can be applied to other types of game as well. Arena games would benefit greatly from a mixture of community warfare/galaxy map/storyline combat, in-game handled tournaments and novelty races.

For arena games and stickiness you should also consult your history books and find people who worked on TA's galactic war, MPBT3025, StarFleet Command's community warfare thing the name of which escapes me etc. Because way too many of these games fuck up the same stuff that most everyone else fucked up.

[Quikding]

Aaaaaand...they're funded.  With 19 hours to go even.

Wow. How did that happen?

DAOC nostalgists, and friends/family of employees.

I pledged $5 so I could bear witness to the chaos and fury of the private backer forums in a year ^^

[Fordel]

 

[Nonentity]

Pretty sure Exsteel failed because it was unplayable due to lag which was the problem with so many of these types of games in 2000-2010. They are picked up by such bottom feeding companies who just can't afford or don't bother to pay for decent bandwidth. I'd imagine the cost of bandwidth is going down though so hopefully as we slowly all get google fiber or its existence forces comcast and others to stop being giant fuckers the environment for arena games will improve.

Rumble Fighter is still kicking though its smaller now for sure, pretty sure Gunbound is still around too. World of Tanks is obviously quite successful. There have been lots of them that without lag and with better translations/localization would probably have done fine. Infinity Online was great but got fucked up by splitting the EU/NA community, lag and there have been many others like that where the company running the NA/EU release couldn't get out of their own way enough for the game to have a chance.

As I said in the PoE thread, other devs need to take note of the race idea from PoE the concept can be applied to other types of game as well. Arena games would benefit greatly from a mixture of community warfare/galaxy map/storyline combat, in-game handled tournaments and novelty races.

For arena games and stickiness you should also consult your history books and find people who worked on TA's galactic war, MPBT3025, StarFleet Command's community warfare thing the name of which escapes me etc. Because way too many of these games fuck up the same stuff that most everyone else fucked up.

Honestly, I was quite down on Smite at the beginning of its existence, but the Arena mode and their recent overhauls of the game have made it sort of like a mix of slower-paced arena-style combat and the whole MOBA thing. I wasn't expecting on coming back to Smite after it's weird early beta with the tradtional DotA map that I'd like it as much as I do.

I think it's really only a matter of time with so much money floating around action RTS games that someone is going to try to crack that nut and succeed.

[KallDrexx]

Also, none of the successful MOBA games, nor WoT have a subscription fee.

[UnSub]

While we're talking great failed PvP MMOs, let's not forget APB.

A huge problem with these games is baby eating - newer players get kerbstomped by more experienced players and don't come back. MOBAs and similar tend to limit the kerbstomping to one game, following which the victim can go off and find somewhere less brutal to develop their skills, get help, etc.

One world PvP games don't have this and / or rely on terrible matchmaking set-ups. This mattered less when there weren't 50 different titles you could be playing if you didn't like the one you were in.

However, there's a large group of players out there in love with the idea of world PvP and that's the story of how CU got its Kickstarter money.

[Hoax]

I said the whole time with APB if it was free to play it would be huge. I still think that was true. They completely fucked up by reducing the playerbase. The smaller the playerbase the worse babyeating gets and feels if its large enough then the baddies have enough baddies to play with that everything is fine.

[Falconeer]

APB is free to play now, and on Steam. Redownloading it myself to see how it plays 3 years later.

[Draegan]

Persistence is a good way to help the stickyness issue, but that persistence has to make sense.  Your ideas for a 1-7 day map only works for games like Planetside, where everyone is able to fight anyone and there is no concept of servers (that counts out Fury, World of Tanks, MOBAs, Exteel, etc....).  GW2 WvW also disagrees that a limited time persistence (1-7 days) has it's drawbacks with motivation when you know the server will just reset all of your progress.  It also affects your morale when you are getting stomped and just decide to wait for the server reset to hope things will be more even (instead of wasting time trying to make things even yourself).

Well yeah, in the 1-7 day map thing, the game is wide open without servers. The persistence is on the web or in the UI with leaderboards, ladders and other epeen stroking stuff. You can create leagues and teams and all sorts of stupid shit that keep people happy. But you need leaderboards.

This is where GW2 failed. They just made a map where people played in. Points of interest were easily flipped and you just ran around getting point ticks. You did this for the whole week and whoever had the most points, won. It's stupid. Not only that, they didn't have leaderboards. No one gave a shit about anything. The gameplay was horrible after time. And boring.

I would like to see a short-term persistent game. A game that persists for a few days. It could last weeks or hours. But there is a definitive end that is objective based. GW2 was just "whoever scores as many points in a week wins". There was no ultimate goal.

I'm terrible at MOBAs and never really got into them, but there is that "early game" I believe where players farm creeps or whatever for experience so they can buy powers/items to put them into the mid-game. I would like to expand that process so it takes place throughout the game. But since I love theorycrafting/dev armchairing for no reason at all, tell me this wouldn't be fun.

Large map, maybe 5-10 the size of AV. No instances obviously, same objectives. 200-300 per side at any given time.
Start off with shit gear, early game is doing quick and easy PVE content for gear. Think EQ-level spawn check/killing for gear. This takes place in the first hours or so.
Once your early power is established, you move out further into the map.
Option 1: Kill other players for gear/experience.
Option 2: Attempt more difficult NPCs for gear or ambush players going for that gear.
Option 3: Begin farming for defensive/offensive bonuses. (Remember those raid bosses from AV that fought for you? That sort of shit.) Your team needs to kill players to fuel these bonuses.

This continues on until one team kills the other's commander. You have a leveling process (takes a few hours), you have gear, you have PVE and PVP targets. More powerful gear in unique. Best weapons in the map are unique so only one person can have them.

Not only that but you fuel the uber gamer that loves that Opening Weekend of an MMORPG rush every single time.

Outside the enjoyment of playing that type of game, you can fuck with class balance, gear balance. Create new maps, allow for 2, 3 or 4 teams. Create special competitions. Offer prizes and other shit outside the game that offers stickiness.

Essentially, it's a MOBA on a super large scale that includes more PVE shit.

[Draegan]

APB is free to play now, and on Steam. Redownloading it myself to see how it plays 3 years later.

Shit it's been three years already? Fuck me.

[HaemishM]

I said the whole time with APB if it was free to play it would be huge.

It might have been if the controls, balance and general mechanics didn't suck monkey ass.

[Dark_MadMax]

A huge problem with these games is baby eating - newer players get kerbstomped by more experienced players and don't come back. MOBAs and similar tend to limit the kerbstomping to one game, following which the victim can go off and find somewhere less brutal to develop their skills, get help, etc.

Well if anything MOBA are biggest "baby eaters". I mean if you never played MOBA before not only you gonna get curb stomped game after game after game, you gonna be trashtalked  while at it as well. And of course every other game will have afk/intentional feeder.  The worst community I ever played with bar none.  Add to it an insane learning curve which makes eve look icasual  and its a mystery to me how LoL is most popular game  out there

[tazelbain]

Because they reduced the learning curve and they have a baby queue

[HaemishM]

Also, because when LOL works right, it's REALLY FUN. And let's not forget that out of the "box" it gives you the ability to play a shitload of champs for cheap or free and has real incentives for spending real money without pressuring you to spend money.

Plus, it's low level community isn't bad - it's only when you've been in it about a month or two that the shitweasels start coming out of the wood work. The difference in low level community I saw between LOL and HON was night and day. HON was just full of trashtalking shitcocks from day one. It took me weeks to get a game with a dicknozzle in LOL. Of course, now that I'm level 30 and playing ranked, it usually takes me weeks to find a game WITHOUT a dicknozzle.

[Sophismata]

HON was just full of trashtalking shitcocks from day one. It took me weeks to get a game with a dicknozzle in LOL. Of course, now that I'm level 30 and playing ranked, it usually takes me weeks to find a game WITHOUT a dicknozzle.

Makes sense; HoN games are ranked from day one.

[Rendakor]

Arise!

This is supposed to be hitting alpha this month; anyone have access to their forums to see if thst's still going to be a thing?

[Nebu]

Arise!

This is supposed to be hitting alpha this month; anyone have access to their forums to see if thst's still going to be a thing?

I have a friend that sends me updates.  I'll do my best to pass them along.

[Rendakor]

Cool, thanks.

[Druzil]

This has all the info on the alpha.

http://camelotunchained.com/en/evening-update-wednesday-august-27th-2014/