Crowfall aka Play2Crush aka Shadowbane II aka Nostalgia Online

[Malakili]

One of the reasons I'm interested in this is the crafting and the idea of voxel environments. If they have non-Wow combat that functions well for peeveepee I'll probably play it for several years.

I sort of agree in principle, but every time I say this about an MMO I play it for 1-3 months then quit.

[Draegan]

The combat should have the mobility of Wildstar but the combat styles of TERA. When I say TERA I mean animation locks/breaks, full body animations not two seperate animation points like in WOW etc. They tickled all my points of interest with that.

[Paelos]

Doing TERA combat and ignoring everything else about that game is a solid design choice.

[Draegan]

Agreed, and you can quote the devs as to agreeing with that.

[Lantyssa]

Yeah, the combat in DCUO was good.  I wish the rest of the game was as fun.

[Kageru]

DCUO was "mash attack until bored" according to my memory... but I guess it makes sense for a PvP game to have a very active combat system.

[Lantyssa]

I don't know about initially.  When I played it had a neat combo system, and the styles were pretty different.  Staff fighting felt bad-ass and punching someone wasn't little hits but more of giving a beat-down.

[Muzadi]

Not to be a bastard, but checking out their team they have 15+ developers.  Being generous and rounding up to $2 million for their Kickstarter, being even more generous and say they have free/donated facilities and infrastructure, and even at Austin, Texas salaries you're looking at a burn rate of at least $150,000 a month, assuming you're being very generous with equity (which in fairness, for a project like this could well be feasible).

So, without additional financing that gives you a year of development.  For something this ambitious, I can't see it being done in anything short of three years...probably more like twice that.

My guess from this is that they must be hoping to use the Kickstarter to get enough progress done to convince investors to drop the rest of the money they need.

I don't envy them that task.

[Threash]

They started off with something like 2.7 million before the kickstarter according to them.

[Muzadi]

They started off with something like 2.7 million before the kickstarter according to them.

So...maybe.  If absolutely nothing goes wrong during development.

I'm a big fan of sandboxes and wish there were more like it, so even though I don't entirely agree with all of their decisions, I do genuinely hope they come up with even a fraction of what they're shooting for.

[Paelos]

I did similar estimates and I think their drop dead number to get it out the door is about $4M. They've raised supposedly about $4M that we know of. So I think they'll get it done, but that won't stop them from taking in more money if they can get equity. I doubt they'd do a big effort in the ways of groupfunding again though.

[Threash]

They've also mentioned international distribution rights would be used as another way to drum up more money i believe.

[Muzadi]

I did similar estimates and I think their drop dead number to get it out the door is about $4M. They've raised supposedly about $4M that we know of. So I think they'll get it done, but that won't stop them from taking in more money if they can get equity. I doubt they'd do a big effort in the ways of groupfunding again though.

I'm going to be hopeful, but it still sounds really optimistic.  That's way below any MMO I've heard of being made, even ones with pre-existing MMORPG engines.  The lowest I've heard of a mainstream MMORPG being made for is about $8 million, and that was considered insanely cheap.

[Segoris]

I doubt they'd do a big effort in the ways of groupfunding again though.

While not a big effort, they did do something smart by following Camelot Unchained's lead (possibly others, but CU is the first I saw do it) and opening pledges on their website to keep kickstarter pledges going. So in addition to the $4mil they have already, they've made $30k on day one. That's not bad at all but not likely to sustain.

For comparison, Camelot Unchained made $1mil in 1.5-2 years by continuing pledges on their site.

[Paelos]

And I think they might sell some cosmetic things to follow in Chris Roberts footsteps as much as I loathe the idea, but I think the temptation to sell castles or whatever up front will prove too much if the money gets short.

[Segoris]

They mentioned they're going to sell unbundled pledge items, which I like.

I think they can do better than selling castles though. They could just sell tilesets for $25 for eternal kingdoms, that would be a cosmetic money machine for them. Then we can see all the oh-so original players named xxDaenerysxx of Else's Ice Castle 12352!

[Triforcer]

I did similar estimates and I think their drop dead number to get it out the door is about $4M. They've raised supposedly about $4M that we know of. So I think they'll get it done, but that won't stop them from taking in more money if they can get equity. I doubt they'd do a big effort in the ways of groupfunding again though.

I'm going to be hopeful, but it still sounds really optimistic.  That's way below any MMO I've heard of being made, even ones with pre-existing MMORPG engines.  The lowest I've heard of a mainstream MMORPG being made for is about $8 million, and that was considered insanely cheap.

Agreed, but recall this is an MMO with zero quests, zero raids, and auto generated worlds.  You do not need 5 plus years to get that kind of product out the door.

[Threash]

Right, they are creating systems not content.  This is their main advantage.

[Muzadi]

Right, they are creating systems not content.  This is their main advantage.

Having done both systems and content design, I'd say that's actually their biggest risk.

In my experience, building content is far more predictable in figuring out how long it is going to take to make. Building systems, on the other hand, requires extremely difficult to predict degrees of iteration.

Content design is building a good car. Systems design is figuring out HOW to build a good car.

On my teams, for content I have always tried to shoot for at least 33-50% of the total content development time to be spent on iteration. On systems, except for the simplest features, it's almost always more like 66-75% of the total development time. Sometimes more.

Don't get me wrong, I think systems-based games are, with some exceptions, generally a better long-term approach for MMORPGs for a whole lot of reasons, but they certainly aren't faster to develop, not unless you are just trying to slop something onto the plate and not iterate at all on it - and these guys are clearly passionate about what they're trying to do and definitely don't fall into that category.

I want them to succeed. This is the kind of game I'd love to see more of - the industry desperately needs more high player agency sandbox games. But the scope they're shooting for combined with the resources they've announced seem very optimistic on their part. Perhaps they have some unannounced sources of financing - that would make me considerably more bullish.

[Segoris]

I agree with what you're saying, but when players basically are the content I think the systems are more important. Sure, for more traditional themepark and pve based games then content is absolutely more important than the systems. But for a pvp game I think it's different. Especially when a simple change of a campaign ruleset can create between a week and a year of content for X number of players or when creating a new class or a new crafted item/weapon can do so much as changing an established meta.

I do agree in your concerns of their budget, but time will tell if they can squeeze enough out of what they have and earn enough additional funding to finish what they are attempting.

[Draegan]

The vowel farm systems they have licensed, as far as I know, have many years of iteration in generating procedural content and maps. I've seen a ton of tech demos in older unity engines.

On top of that, the very nature of campaigns is of itself an iterative process that let's them fine tune things as the game matures.

[Threash]

The game is also going to be very bare bones, i was actually surprised that combat pets weren't even going to be a thing until a very late stretch goal.

[Falconeer]

Shadowbane memories.

[KallDrexx]

The game is also going to be very bare bones, i was actually surprised that combat pets weren't even going to be a thing until a very late stretch goal.

Combat pets are extremely difficult to do right.  Last I saw Guild Wars 2 still had retarded dumb as brick pets that they couldn't get the AI working for, and that game actually has profits to back it.

[Samwise]

not unless you are just trying to slop something onto the plate and not iterate at all on it - and these guys are clearly passionate about what they're trying to do and definitely don't fall into that category.

Based on how they talk when they're trying to stir up crowdfunding, sure, but have you played their resumes?   

[Lantyssa]

Combat pets are extremely difficult to do right.  Last I saw Guild Wars 2 still had retarded dumb as brick pets that they couldn't get the AI working for, and that game actually has profits to back it.

That's because they've pretty much ignored Rangers.  For the longest time the dev responsible insisted they were fine, or that changes were coming, or just ignored people.  I don't remember which it's been so long.

[Draegan]

not unless you are just trying to slop something onto the plate and not iterate at all on it - and these guys are clearly passionate about what they're trying to do and definitely don't fall into that category.

Based on how they talk when they're trying to stir up crowdfunding, sure, but have you played their resumes?  

Aren't Pirates and Wizard 101 games popular and decent games for the target audience? My oldest kid is 2 years old so I have no idea.

[kaid]

The game is also going to be very bare bones, i was actually surprised that combat pets weren't even going to be a thing until a very late stretch goal.

Combat pets are extremely difficult to do right.  Last I saw Guild Wars 2 still had retarded dumb as brick pets that they couldn't get the AI working for, and that game actually has profits to back it.

Gah what really killed me with combat pets in GW2 is they just refused to see the obvious in a game all about avoiding the bad things on the ground a dumb pet who could not do that had to be either highly resistant or nearly immune to those ground effects. There were so many dungeons on my ranger that you simply could not use the pet as the zones of doom were so deadly the pet simply could not survive it long enough to do any damage.

[Mandella]

The game is also going to be very bare bones, i was actually surprised that combat pets weren't even going to be a thing until a very late stretch goal.

Combat pets are extremely difficult to do right.  Last I saw Guild Wars 2 still had retarded dumb as brick pets that they couldn't get the AI working for, and that game actually has profits to back it.

Gah what really killed me with combat pets in GW2 is they just refused to see the obvious in a game all about avoiding the bad things on the ground a dumb pet who could not do that had to be either highly resistant or nearly immune to those ground effects. There were so many dungeons on my ranger that you simply could not use the pet as the zones of doom were so deadly the pet simply could not survive it long enough to do any damage.

Apparently pathing is still hard. IIRC Turbine just gave it up and made all the pets immune to ground effects in LOTRO...

[drogg]

here's gordon walton's breezy finance take, for paelo's et. al:
(spoilered for verbosity)

[drogg]

also the future of npcs:

http://t.co/fM423I2CqH

[LC]

One question pops up in my head when I think of this game. How many wipes until players lose interest in a one trick pony?

[Triforcer]

One question pops up in my head when I think of this game. How many wipes until players lose interest in a one trick pony?

PvE zones last a few hours each, but ganking miners is forever.

[Draegan]

One question pops up in my head when I think of this game. How many wipes until players lose interest in a one trick pony?

Couldn't the same thing be said about any MOBA or FPS?

[LC]

One question pops up in my head when I think of this game. How many wipes until players lose interest in a one trick pony?

PvE zones last a few hours each, but ganking miners is forever.

Problem is that games like this don't attract anyone but pvpers since that's all it really offers. So it loses that special feeling.