"Where did we go wrong? There was a time when our industry took CHANCES. Our games didn't have to appeal to everyone, and we didn't judge ourselves solely on mass market success. With amusement park games, it's impossible to lose. With sandbox games, it's impossible to win. If you can't win and you can't lose, then what's the point of playing? I don't want to kill more rats, fill another experience point bar or collect another meaningless badge. I want to play a GAME, against PLAYERS, where my actions, my decisions and my SKILL will determine if i win or lose. Allies. Enemies. Alliances. Betrayal. Risk. Conquest. To compete with THOUSANDS of other players for a chance to claim the THRONE. Even if I lose, the experience won't feel hollow. I don't want another worthless trophy. I WANT TO PLAY TO CRUSH."
No Tab-targeting. Player collision. No PvE raids. No PvE "big loot". PvP driven world. Player-driven economy. Full player loot. Item decay on death. Fealty system. One guy who may sit the throne.
The producers explicitly claim that this is not a WoW-killer. This is not an EVE-killer. This game will not be for everyone. On February 24th, ArtCraft Entertainment (J Todd Coleman, Gordon Walton, Raph Koster, ...) will most likely drop a big bomb onto the MMO world.
So far, every Tuesday and Thursaday ACE has been dropping some info:
Crowfall is a “buy once, play forever” game. That means that you buy the game once (estimated retail price of USD $50.) and you can play for the life of the game, without ever paying us again!
We also offer an optional VIP membership, details of which are provided below.
2. Can I spend real world currency buy in-game items or currency?
No. The only things that you can buy from ArtCraft:
- VIP membership tickets
- Cosmetic items that do not affect gameplay
- Account level services (such as increasing your number of character slots, or the size and population caps of your personal kingdom).
3. What do I get for buying the game?
You get a digital copy of the game and one active game account, which you can use to connect to the live game service.
Each game account allows for three characters, and one “passive training” slot that you can use to train one of your characters – even when you are offline.
4. Are there any restrictions on those character slots?
Nope. You have access to all the archetypes. You get the same number of character creation points to use to customize your characters. You draw from the same list of advantages, disadvantages, promotion classes and disciplines to advance your character. Your skill list is the same. Your character advances at the same rate.
Our goal is to make the VIP membership entirely optional.
5. What do I get for a VIP membership?
VIP members allows a few additional benefits:
“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!
6. How much will VIP membership cost?
The price is currently TBD, but we’re expecting it to be around $15 a month.
7. Can I buy resources (stone, iron, wood) from ACE?
No. Once the only way to get resources will be to either earn them by participating in Campaigns, or by trading with other players.
8. Can items and resources be traded between players?
Yes. This the foundation of a player-driven economy.
9. Can I trade VIP membership tickets to other players?
Yes. This means that people who purchase the game, but don’t want to pay a monthly subscription, can still become VIP members by providing goods and services to other players.
10. Does this apply to the game world-wide? or just North America?
These answers are for North America only. Other territories will have likely different pricing methods. Details related to other markets will be released at a later time.
I'll admit this looks interesting. Hopefully the PvP will be fluid and fun, which seems t be the main appeal of this game but it's hard to judge just from a few screenshots. We need some video footage I'll be coming back to this thread to see if there are any updates ^^
Look pretty interesting I will admit. If I'm reading correctly it's a MMORPG with territorial conflict which should keep things changing if it's balanced.
Sadly, out of principle, I can't let myself be hyped. I was hyped for ArcheAge, and I see how that turned out. By default, I will assume that if this game is going to be F2P, then it will likely disappoint me.
Until now, we’ve been describing the game in general terms. The real differences between Crowfall and other MMORPGs have been “creeping around the edges” of our weekly updates.
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.
To illustrate this point, let me use an analogy. Every Thanksgiving, my family gets together for a game of RISK. Only it’s not “let’s play Risk every thanksgiving” – it’s “let’s pick up from where we left last year, in the SAME game of Risk.”
The same game. The same conflict. Year after year after year:
Imagine that, in year 2, Uncle Bob starts winning.
In year 3, Uncle Bob presses the advantage. By the end of this game session, Bob basically owns the board.
Fast forward 10 years. We’re still playing that same game. Uncle Bob is now an unassailable tyrant.
The other players (i.e. everyone other than Uncle Bob) all wander away from the board to watch football or something – because they know they don’t stand a chance. If a new player joins the game, Bob snuffs them out in their infancy, and they quit immediately.
Everyone is bored. Even Uncle Bob is bored – because he hasn’t faced a challenge in over a decade. But he won’t give up by choice. That isn’t human nature.
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.
TL;DR version 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.
Eternal Heroes, Dying Worlds 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.
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.
So, when I was reading this, I was very sceptical. When I finished reading, and started to think about it, it made much more sense, and I think this might turn out to be a very good principle. There are still a lot of open questions there for speculation, but I think these guys are onto something here.
yea sounds very interesting and I think if done properly this could be a very nice way of forming communities, rivalries and a long lasting game.
Path of Exile does something similar with its challenge leagues. PoE is at its core a dungeon grinder like Diablo but with the challenge leagues that introduce new hazards and a completely new economy every few months it keeps the game interesting for people.
Interesting. MMO's are always most popular at release (or release of expansion) as there is that new charge towards something clear, and all the exploration. But then as they add content, old content is stuck in a weird spot of not really having any purpose.
If they can gradually ease between what were given in the example as seasons I'd be quite impressed, if not you will definitely see spikes of players when a new season lands, and the gradual decline as people get bored of the stagnation.
I'm getting a ton of flashbacks to the real old old school mmo's like tribal wars. I'd rather wait to see the carry over between worlds but this is getting me ultra hype.
On February 04 2015 02:08 XXXSmOke wrote: I really like the idea of the hardcore no PvE bullshit, I just want a game that is PvP and that when I die it actually means something.
There is SOME PvE in there (I guess for clearing out points of interest when it's first-claimed, or so, something like that), but not the same amount and form of the rinse-repeat dungeons raids & co stuff.
On February 04 2015 01:08 MotherOfRunes wrote: thats what i said after they released the first details for warhammer online.....then they fucked up and the game died
Yes, gotta be careful. With many other games that went in a wrong direction after their announcements. Anyway, 21 days to go for more info. Until then, droplets
On February 04 2015 02:28 willoc wrote: This sounds great! I'll check back when beta is here.
You can register on crowfall.com for automatic beta signup, if you haven't done so yet.
First, I hope that you guys caught that we put our full team names/pictures/mini-bios on our site earlier this week. We’re very grateful that we’ve been able to assemble this level of talent for our core team. Check them out here!
We’ll have more detailed Q&A type interviews with the team members coming over the coming weeks. If you have specific questions for any of our team you might ask them in this thread on our forums, no promises that they can or will answer them all, but hopefully we can answer a few!
Now for the meat of this update:
We've gotten a lot of questions about funding for Crowfall, so let's talk about money.
As you folks know, MMOs are an expensive business. We know, we’ve made a few of them. The costs of an MMO are dominated by the salaries of the people who build it; professional engineers, artists, designers and many other roles that all expect and deserve to get paid.
The good news is that today we have more options than ever to fund game projects (beyond the old standby of selling our soul -- and the rights to the entire game -- to a worldwide publisher).
In the last few years, crowdfunding has emerged as a new option for raising funds directly from consumers. As most of you know, sites like kickstarter allow backers to pre-purchase products to support the creator(s) in bringing a product to market.
Our company has taken some money (in the form of equity investment) already. We used this money to start our company and begin the development of Crowfall. It's worth noting that Todd and I, i.e. the founders, were also the first two investors. Neither of us are "rich" -- historically, we're hired guns, paid to make games by other people or companies. We believe in Crowfall -- so much, in fact, that 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. We are fully invested in this project, and in this company.
To get this game brought to market, we intend to use every method at our disposal to fund the game through completion.
Specifically:
We will likely sell more equity (ownership in our company) in the future, We will license some of the overseas rights for Crowfall. We're going to try and keep control of the English-speaking territories. And, yes, we will do a crowdfunding campaign. We aren't asking you to fund the entire game, but your participation is a key piece of the funding puzzle.
A successful crowdfunding campaign does more than just provide funding; it also demonstrates "market viability." It shows that Crowfall has a committed audience, and that we're making a game that people want to play. Our story is stronger, and that dramatically improves our ability to sell both equity and license overseas rights. It's a real force multiplier in giving us the resources we need to build a world-class game.
To be clear: we have a LOT of experience working with publishers, and if that's the only way to get this game made, we'll do it... but the moment we sign away world-wide rights, we lose some of the control over our vision. Publishers are in the business of creating mega-hits, and the way to make a mega hit is usually to change your design to appeal to the mass market.
Frankly, we’ll do whatever it takes to make this game for you (within our legal and ethical constraints, of course) but we would much rather answer to you, our customers.
We also believe in the power of Crowdfunding, particularly for games that are innovative and/or tightly targeted to an under-served audience. We also love the intimacy it creates between developers and the core audience. Committed players help keep our development process honest, and consumer-focused. Both Todd and I have experienced decisions being made about our games which were not in the best interest of the players and the game, to serve other corporate interests. We want to cut that middle man out, and work for you: our players.
For those of you who don’t feel up to backing a product before it is market-ready: we understand, and we absolutely respect your position. Hopefully you’ll give Crowfall another look, once we bring the game to market.
For those of you who are willing to back us: thank you, and please know that we are looking for more than just your money. We want your input, your attention and your passion. Every great game goes through a lot of iteration during development. We are going to be leaning on you, our early adopters, to help us achieve this vision. To keep the game focused on an experience our core fans will love. To help us make the difficult, reality-based decisions about how and where to spend our limited resources.
It’s going to be adventure, and we would love you to be a part of it. We believe this game deserves to be made.
We hope you feel the same way, and will give serious consideration to backing Crowfall when our crowdfunding campaign launches.
1. You call Crowfall a Throne War Simulator, what is that?
It’s a new sub-genre of MMO! It's a combination of strategy game and an MMO.
2. How is it different than a normal MMO?
A key facet of most (if not all) strategy games –checkers, chess, monopoly, risk – is that they have win conditions. Even sports follow this model. Specifically: the flow of the game includes a beginning state (where the competitors should be roughly equal), a series of moves made by each competitor, and a victory condition whereby a winner is declared.
To make the game work for repeated play, there is a “reset mechanic” after each victory, where the board state is reset to allow players start the game again.
3. What do you mean by “reset mechanic”?
This “reset mechanic” is a way of returning to game to a start state, so that players remain interested in playing the game. It is a necessary ingredient to making the game work over time.
To illustrate this problem, let’s use an analogy.
Every Thanksgiving, a family gets together for a game of RISK. Only it’s not “let’s play Risk every Thanksgiving” – it’s “let’s pick up from where we left last year, in the SAME game of Risk.”
The same game. The same conflict. Year, after year, after year.
Imagine that, in year 2, Uncle Bob starts winning.
In year 3, Uncle Bob presses the advantage. By the end of this game session, Bob basically owns the board.
Fast forward 10 years. Same game. Uncle Bob is now an unassailable tyrant.
The other players (i.e. everyone other than Uncle Bob) wander away from the board – because they know they don’t stand a chance. If a new player joins the game, Bob snuffs them out in their infancy, and they quit immediately.
Everyone is bored. Even Uncle Bob is bored – because he hasn’t faced a challenge in over a decade. But he won’t give up by choice. That isn’t human nature.
In an MMO, we call this phenomenon server stagnation. The game is incredibly fun – right up until someone wins. Then, unless there is a way to start over again, the game stagnates and everyone quits.
4. Are reset mechanics typical for an MMO?
Not at all. The challenge in combining these two genres is that player have very different expectations when it comes to gameplay.
Where most strategy games have a win condition followed by a reset mechanism, a key feature of a Massively Multiplayer Online Game is that it is 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 these two concept be married together? We believe so!
5. How do you marry these two concepts?
We call it “Eternal Heroes, Dying Worlds.”
What if characters are persistent (i.e. they never reset) – but the Worlds are not? Consider each “world” as a separate Campaign. It could have a beginning, a middle, and an end – after which a victor is declared.
The characters can still be persistent, and they can participate in a series of Campaigns over the life of the character.
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 will 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 month, or 3 months. or 6 months. or 1 year. These Campaigns aren’t just “instances”, though -- they are fully populated, continent-sized, seamless zone MMO servers with as many people as the server architecture will support. 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 also allow the players to fundamentally change the world, without fear of the long-term problems this usually creates. And since the Campaigns are discrete, why not make each one 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. We can take that initial rush of excitement you get when you enter an MMO for the first time, and bottle it. We can make it repeatable. 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.
6. Is it like a MOBA?
No, not really. MOBAs are typically played on a single map (one zone), the characters start over at 1st level every time you play, the combat is limited two teams, each team has a small number of combatants, and the duration is very short (20 minutes to an hour.)
Campaign worlds are large scale, with thousands of players in the same environment – just like a tradition MMO. The zones are seamless, and the scale of the map is huge (i.e. the size of a virtual continent.) The maps are also unique; each one has a different layout that is unknown to the players at the beginning of the map. In this way, the beginning of each Campaign is more like the first turn of a game of “Civilization” than the start of a “League of Legends” match. Lastly, the duration is much longer – Campaign durations are measured in month, not minutes.
7. How big do you expect each Campaign to be? And how long will they last?
In terms of number of players, it’s a seamless-world MMO server, so the goal is to support thousands of players. It’s not a “50 versus 50 match”, or anything like that. The only limit that will be placed on the user population for each Campaign Worlds will be the technical limitations of the hardware, i.e. how many players can a server handle? We won’t know that until testing, but we expect it to be similar to other seamless world MMOs.
In terms of duration, we expect them to last anywhere from a month to a year. Technically, they can last any duration – so we’ll probably put up a handful of options, and see which are most popular.
8. But since the Campaign Worlds go away, doesn’t that make Crowfall less persistent than most MMOs?
Actually, no – because, remember, most MMOs don’t allow you to modify the world at all. The only persistent data they store IS your character data. Since your character data is permanent in Crowfall, too, it’s technically accurate to say that Crowfall is “just as persistent as most MMOs.”
The difference is that our maps aren’t static. Campaign Worlds will constantly be created and destroyed, which means the Universe is continually in flux. As a result, the game will feel a LOT less static.
9. What does a typical Campaign looks like?
Here is a narrative example:
Phase 1 is Spring. The Campaign map is hidden by fog of war. You are dropped (often 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.
10. Are any of the Worlds permanent?
Yes. The Crowfall universe is divided into “rings” or “bands” of Worlds. Each band contains multiple worlds of that have a common ruleset, running in parallel. Within each Band, new worlds will be constantly appearing (and disappearing, whenever a Campaign ends).
The outer ring is called “The Eternal Kingdoms” and these Worlds are permanent. They are also player owned and player-managed. Typically, we expect them to act as places for players to gather between Campaigns. They are still dynamic – meaning that you can build fortifications and structures on these worlds -- but they don’t have a victory condition and they never go away. They are more like traditional MMO servers.
11. What do you mean by “player owned and player managed”?
As the owner of a Kingdom, players are the monarch of these Worlds. They get to set many of the rules that govern that World and the buildings within it. Don’t want people to visit your world? Lock it out. Want to setup a place for others to visit and trade? Make it public! Want to set a tax for all trade that happens there? Go for it. Want to turn on free for all PvP? No problem.
Alternatively, if you don’t want to manage your own kingdom, you can always swear fealty to the Monarch of another Kingdom and be granted a domain (i.e. one or more parcels of land) within that Kingdom. If your domain is greater than one parcel, you can sub-parcel out areas within YOUR domain to other players – creating a fealty tree. This is an ideal approach for Guilds and crafters.
12. So the purpose of the Kingdom is to store trophies? I thought you said “trophies” were lame?
“Meaningless” trophies are lame. Giving a player a trophy for killing 10 rats is lame; because that’s like the “participation” trophies we give our kids for playing soccer.
Meaningful Trophies (like a Super Bowl ring, the Stanley Cup, or the Iron Throne of Westeros) are much cooler: they have value, both tangible and perceived. A meaningless trophy is one that is not earned.
Many of the trophies that you can collect in the Campaign Worlds provide in-game benefit: they can be used to make your Kingdom stronger, or make you (or your team) more viable in future Campaigns.
Campaign Trophies include relics, artifacts, materials and rare resources – the things that are required to build structures, craft equipment, and fuel the economy of your Kingdom. A Kingdom is not a lobby in the traditional sense; but it serves a similar purpose as a place that players can gather in between participation in Campaigns.
That said, players who have no interest in Kingdoms are not required to visit them.
13. Why do I want to create equipment in my Kingdom? I thought characters couldn’t take items into the Campaigns…?
Not necessarily! Each World has a set of “import rules” that dictate what can (or can’t) be brought into that Campaign.
14. Doesn’t that create balance issues? Using the analogy above, isn’t this like Uncle Bob bringing a bunch of tanks into the next game of Risk, after the board reset?
It could, except that everyone coming into a Campaign is dealing with the same Import rules. The key to the reset mechanic isn’t “the board must be clean,” the goal is “everyone needs to start on roughly equal footing, to make the game fun.”
If everyone is allowed to bring the same number of assets into a Campaign (i.e. if we can ALL bring in a few tanks) then the starting condition is still balanced.
15. But what if I choose a Campaign that allows for items, but I don’t bring any? That would be unbalanced!
Well, yeah, it would be. But that’s your choice.
Remember, our design goal is to ensure that players have the OPPORUNTITY to start each Campaign on roughly equal footing. We aren’t going to protect players from making bad decisions.
16. Why would I choose to play in the different rulesets of Campaigns?
“Different strokes for different folks.”
The various rules sets were designed to keep gameplay fresh, and to balance risk vs. reward. The more difficult the ruleset, the higher the potential reward.
We also expect that players will often sell the rewards they bring back from the Campaigns to other players, further driving both social interaction and the world-to-world economy.
17. That means I won’t have access to certain resources, if I am unwilling to play on those worlds?
You won’t have direct access, no. You can buy those resources from other players.
Our hope is that you might step out of your comfort zone and try the more difficult worlds… but that’s your choice. Again, it’s all about balancing risk and reward.
18. What is to prevent people from non-stop Campaign hopping?
Campaigns are not intended to be transitory. Our design goal is for players to pick a Campaign and stick with it until the end.
We have a number of ideas to enforce or encourage this, from hard rules (i.e. characters are locked to a Campaign) to soft rules (if you quit a Campaign early, you lose all rewards and pay a penalty.)
This is one that we’re still debating, though – and we’d love to hear your thoughts! On the good side, it’s also a decision that we can easily change, if we try something and we don’t like it.
19. How many Campaigns will be running at once?
As many as we need, to support our player base!
The universe map shows ruleset bands; at any given time, each band will host a number of Campaigns, in various stages of completion. There should always be new Campaigns starting, and old Campaigns come to completion.
20. Why would I participate in a long Campaign? It seems like I would get more rewards from doing a bunch of shorter ones?
Rewards scale up based on the difficulty of the Campaign and the duration. In effect, you can earn more rewards by making the longer-term commitment – and, of course, by winning.
Again, it’s all about risk and reward.
21. Are there any of victory conditions other than the passage of time?
There certainly can be!
Our system allows us to make any number of Worlds, and any number of rules sets. The amazing thing about this design is that it allows for a huge degree of experimentation! Most MMOs get one chance – at launch – to find a mix of rules that appeals to the players. The great thing about the Campaign architecture is that we can be trying dozens of ideas in parallel, all the time. It’s like a generic algorithm for MMO design: the good ideas can be replicated (and riffed on), the bad ideas can be filtered out.
22. How open are you guys to trying new ideas within Campaigns?
Our intention is to make this a community-driven process. We’ll come up with ideas, you guys will come up with ideas – and we’ll take the best ideas we find, wherever they come from, and we’ll give them a shot.
If an idea gains enough traction – meaning we like it, and you guys like it – we’ll try it**.
(**so long as it fits within the architecture. We just have to be careful that we don’t break the game at the meta-level.)
You want to try a world with no magic? Cool.
You want to try a world where we introduce gun power? Sounds interesting.
You want to try a world where each character only has one life – meaning that if you die once, you are permanently banned from the World? (I call this idea “Campaign Permadeath”)… Sure, let’s try it.
That’s the cool thing about this approach. We’re turning our game community into a massive, game-designing hivemind.
You want to try a world where each character only has one life – meaning that if you die once, you are permanently banned from the World? (I call this idea “Campaign Permadeath”)… Sure, let’s try it.
Can you imagine an mmorpg with only one death? Hardcore.
Having played probably less than 2 hours of MMORPGs lifetime, I can't say that I quite understand the ramifications involved but that sounds pretty awesome as an optional way to play some worlds. You do get to keep the character for other campaigns though as far as I can tell.
Actually the whole game sounds really cool. My biggest issue with it is that it looks SO INTERESTING and I probably won't get to play for at least 6 months if not much more :/
On February 05 2015 05:39 KillerSOS wrote: Interesting idea. Will levels carry over to new worlds or just the cosmetics? I hope it works out, I might actually try it if it does.
I don't think they have mentioned anything about levels even existing yet.
On February 05 2015 02:16 Sn0_Man wrote: Having played probably less than 2 hours of MMORPGs lifetime, I can't say that I quite understand the ramifications involved but that sounds pretty awesome as an optional way to play some worlds. You do get to keep the character for other campaigns though as far as I can tell.
Actually the whole game sounds really cool. My biggest issue with it is that it looks SO INTERESTING and I probably won't get to play for at least 6 months if not much more :/
You're fine. This won't be out until 2017 at least, I think. It's in pre-alpha, and development started 6 months ago.
edit: also this. Looks like it's either P2P or B2P for Crowfall.
So far, this still looks good. I too am skeptical about their Campaign system, but mostly because I fear it might make the Eternal Kingdom a bit dull. From the looks of it, it seems it will depend on the player who lords over the kingdom, since they can decide the rules. So long as we can have sieges and PvP battles in the Eternal Kingdom, this should rock.
On February 05 2015 02:16 Sn0_Man wrote: Having played probably less than 2 hours of MMORPGs lifetime, I can't say that I quite understand the ramifications involved but that sounds pretty awesome as an optional way to play some worlds. You do get to keep the character for other campaigns though as far as I can tell.
Actually the whole game sounds really cool. My biggest issue with it is that it looks SO INTERESTING and I probably won't get to play for at least 6 months if not much more :/
You're fine. This won't be out until 2017 at least, I think. It's in pre-alpha, and development started 6 months ago.
edit: also this. Looks like it's either P2P or B2P for Crowfall.
So far, this still looks good. I too am skeptical about their Campaign system, but mostly because I fear it might make the Eternal Kingdom a bit dull. From the looks of it, it seems it will depend on the player who lords over the kingdom, since they can decide the rules. So long as we can have sieges and PvP battles in the Eternal Kingdom, this should rock.
Eternal Kingdom is I believe a peaceful area. Its like your WoW capital cities, a place where you are safe and have your house from where you go out to the other realms where you do the actual fighting
On February 05 2015 02:16 Sn0_Man wrote: Having played probably less than 2 hours of MMORPGs lifetime, I can't say that I quite understand the ramifications involved but that sounds pretty awesome as an optional way to play some worlds. You do get to keep the character for other campaigns though as far as I can tell.
Actually the whole game sounds really cool. My biggest issue with it is that it looks SO INTERESTING and I probably won't get to play for at least 6 months if not much more :/
You're fine. This won't be out until 2017 at least, I think. It's in pre-alpha, and development started 6 months ago.
edit: also this. Looks like it's either P2P or B2P for Crowfall.
So far, this still looks good. I too am skeptical about their Campaign system, but mostly because I fear it might make the Eternal Kingdom a bit dull. From the looks of it, it seems it will depend on the player who lords over the kingdom, since they can decide the rules. So long as we can have sieges and PvP battles in the Eternal Kingdom, this should rock.
Eternal Kingdom is I believe a peaceful area. Its like your WoW capital cities, a place where you are safe and have your house from where you go out to the other realms where you do the actual fighting
I could be wrong, but I don't think so. Based on the FAQ quoted above, it seems to me that Eternal Kingdoms are composed of several words (or "kingdoms") with one player at the head of each of them. That player gets to decide the rules of the world.
"11. What do you mean by “player owned and player managed”?
As the owner of a Kingdom, players are the monarch of these Worlds. They get to set many of the rules that govern that World and the buildings within it. Don’t want people to visit your world? Lock it out. Want to setup a place for others to visit and trade? Make it public! Want to set a tax for all trade that happens there? Go for it. Want to turn on free for all PvP? No problem."
Am I misinterpreting that, or? It specifically mentions player-built and player-owned, so I read it as: Eternal Kingdoms are servers, and each server is a Kingdom, and each Kingdom has a King. That King sets the rules, which include PvP and all that cool stuff.
I mean, there has to be some methodology for players to unseat kings in an existing eternal kingdom right?
Presumably the campaigns are more about securing the rarer resources and materials for your ongoing ambitions in the eternal kingdoms. Otherwise why would it be called a "throne simulator" . And you need some sort of reward for achieving the win-con in the temporary campaigns. Which is why they mentioned "trophies" having in-game effect somewhere.
On February 05 2015 05:39 KillerSOS wrote: Interesting idea. Will levels carry over to new worlds or just the cosmetics? I hope it works out, I might actually try it if it does.
I don't think they have mentioned anything about levels even existing yet.
I thought they explicitly mentioned that levels DON'T exist.
On February 05 2015 02:16 Sn0_Man wrote: Having played probably less than 2 hours of MMORPGs lifetime, I can't say that I quite understand the ramifications involved but that sounds pretty awesome as an optional way to play some worlds. You do get to keep the character for other campaigns though as far as I can tell.
Actually the whole game sounds really cool. My biggest issue with it is that it looks SO INTERESTING and I probably won't get to play for at least 6 months if not much more :/
You're fine. This won't be out until 2017 at least, I think. It's in pre-alpha, and development started 6 months ago.
edit: also this. Looks like it's either P2P or B2P for Crowfall.
So far, this still looks good. I too am skeptical about their Campaign system, but mostly because I fear it might make the Eternal Kingdom a bit dull. From the looks of it, it seems it will depend on the player who lords over the kingdom, since they can decide the rules. So long as we can have sieges and PvP battles in the Eternal Kingdom, this should rock.
Eternal Kingdom is I believe a peaceful area. Its like your WoW capital cities, a place where you are safe and have your house from where you go out to the other realms where you do the actual fighting
I could be wrong, but I don't think so. Based on the FAQ quoted above, it seems to me that Eternal Kingdoms are composed of several words (or "kingdoms") with one player at the head of each of them. That player gets to decide the rules of the world.
"11. What do you mean by “player owned and player managed”?
As the owner of a Kingdom, players are the monarch of these Worlds. They get to set many of the rules that govern that World and the buildings within it. Don’t want people to visit your world? Lock it out. Want to setup a place for others to visit and trade? Make it public! Want to set a tax for all trade that happens there? Go for it. Want to turn on free for all PvP? No problem."
Am I misinterpreting that, or? It specifically mentions player-built and player-owned, so I read it as: Eternal Kingdoms are servers, and each server is a Kingdom, and each Kingdom has a King. That King sets the rules, which include PvP and all that cool stuff.
My interpretation was based off their description of the Eternal Kingdom being like lobbies, which may well be wrong :p
Why is it taking so long for a good medieval PvP MMORPG to come out? is it a pipe dream? is it unpopular? I'm not saying none have ever been released, nor that none have tried, but it seems crazy that there's such a deficit with it.
Ultima Online is perhaps the only game that really fits that category in my opinion(?) although I haven't played it, and it's obviously extremely old.
I rather dislike monthly payplan games that you oftentimes have to buy as well, but if it's necessary to get it done right I guess myself and others will deal with it. I'm a fan of the buy once philosophy of Guild Wars.
I'm having high hopes for Pathfinder Online despite it's potential for mediocrity or failure. Since they're both games being release in quite a distant future I wonder if their releases will at all overlap in time frame. Nothing's worse than playing 2 MMOs at once.
The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that Crowfall will follow GW2's business model.
If you think of Crowfall's Campaigns as their own personal take on the Living Story, it makes sense. They'll have an inflow of money from sales, and then they'll probably set up a cash shop à la GW2 to sustain their income. Campaigns will keep people coming, sort of like Living Story does. At least, in theory.
Depending on how they execute it, it could work better than Living Story. I could be wrong though, maybe they'll go for a subscription-based model, but this makes a lot of sense to me.
- Once we had the base concept locked, we broke the "Hunger" effect into stages. We wanted to sell the idea that the Hunger spreads like a disease, and it happens over time -- twisting and corrupting a creature so that, by the onset of Winter, it becomes unrecognizable.
- Once we had the various stages in mind, we jumped to the Winter and created a high-res image. The goal here was to visualize the musculature and Hunger effects in detail.
- That image was then used to create a high polygon model, a 3D sculpt of the cat in all his (her?) glory. After modelling, we textured (painted) her -- including lighting, diffusion and reflection layers. The model was then rigged with an internal skeleton, and animated. The final result of this process can be seen this video:
Crowfall is a “buy once, play forever” game. That means that you buy the game once (estimated retail price of USD $50.) and you can play for the life of the game, without ever paying us again!
We also offer an optional VIP membership, details of which are provided below.
2. Can I spend real world currency buy in-game items or currency?
No. The only things that you can buy from ArtCraft:
- VIP membership tickets
- Cosmetic items that do not affect gameplay
- Account level services (such as increasing your number of character slots, or the size and population caps of your personal kingdom).
3. What do I get for buying the game?
You get a digital copy of the game and one active game account, which you can use to connect to the live game service.
Each game account allows for three characters, and one “passive training” slot that you can use to train one of your characters – even when you are offline.
4. Are there any restrictions on those character slots?
Nope. You have access to all the archetypes. You get the same number of character creation points to use to customize your characters. You draw from the same list of advantages, disadvantages, promotion classes and disciplines to advance your character. Your skill list is the same. Your character advances at the same rate.
Our goal is to make the VIP membership entirely optional.
5. What do I get for a VIP membership?
VIP members allows a few additional benefits:
“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!
6. How much will VIP membership cost?
The price is currently TBD, but we’re expecting it to be around $15 a month.
7. Can I buy resources (stone, iron, wood) from ACE?
No. Once the only way to get resources will be to either earn them by participating in Campaigns, or by trading with other players.
8. Can items and resources be traded between players?
Yes. This the foundation of a player-driven economy.
9. Can I trade VIP membership tickets to other players?
Yes. This means that people who purchase the game, but don’t want to pay a monthly subscription, can still become VIP members by providing goods and services to other players.
10. Does this apply to the game world-wide? or just North America?
These answers are for North America only. Other territories will have likely different pricing methods. Details related to other markets will be released at a later time.
Well, passive levellingtraining of 3 characters seems like a preeeetty big advantage but we'll have to see how valuable it is to have a variety of levelledtrained characters.
And i'm sure somebody will whine that you can trade VIP tickets for in-game stuff setting up a virtual P2W system whereby I can buy VIP tickets and trade them for in-game items, but considering the economy style that they are going for, trading for external items is absolutely going to happen regardless of any attempt to prevent it, so I don't have issues with them doing it in a way that directs the revenue stream through them, makes it safe if you choose their method, etc.
TBH my biggest concern about the payment model is how they can build a playerbase with the upfront payment. I know it can happen but that barrier to entry does hurt.
On February 13 2015 04:43 Liebig wrote: Isn't being able to trade the VIP tickets kinda like the plex system in Eve ?
Mostly yes, the difference being that plex is playtime which is free for Crowfall so not being able to make your plex payment for a bit will probably not have any big consequences.
I like the B2P model, and think it works for what the game looks like so far.
However, I have some concerns about having a "VIP membership" à la ArcheAge. Those who played know how terrible it is, but ArcheAge is purely and entirely pay-to-win, no question about it. Then again, even Trion advertised their game as "No Tricks, No Traps"... so I'm afraid that with Crowfall, I'm going to be extremely cautious and wait. No preorders for me on this one.
Another concern is "Personal Kingdoms". People on the forums have been musing about those, and it's still unclear what they are. The fact that you can apparently use real money to increase their size suggests it is some sort of player housing. I'm starting to worry about the dynamic of Eternal Kingdoms.
Overall, colour me way more uninterested than I was before. I'll keep following the development, but this info drop turned me off quite a bit. Perhaps my interest will be piqued again in the future, after all, we still have very little information, but I was too hugely disappointed by ArcheAge to be hyped again.
On February 13 2015 14:17 Spaylz wrote: Kind of put off by the new info release.
I like the B2P model, and think it works for what the game looks like so far.
However, I have some concerns about having a "VIP membership" à la ArcheAge. Those who played know how terrible it is, but ArcheAge is purely and entirely pay-to-win, no question about it. Then again, even Trion advertised their game as "No Tricks, No Traps"... so I'm afraid that with Crowfall, I'm going to be extremely cautious and wait. No preorders for me on this one.
Another concern is "Personal Kingdoms". People on the forums have been musing about those, and it's still unclear what they are. The fact that you can apparently use real money to increase their size suggests it is some sort of player housing. I'm starting to worry about the dynamic of Eternal Kingdoms.
Overall, colour me way more uninterested than I was before. I'll keep following the development, but this info drop turned me off quite a bit. Perhaps my interest will be piqued again in the future, after all, we still have very little information, but I was too hugely disappointed by ArcheAge to be hyped again.
As with everything it will entirely depend on implementiation. ArcheAge fucked up with their labor pots and later with rare crafting mats from vip boxes. If Crowfall does something similar they will suffer for it just the same.
As for Personal Kingdoms, I believe the Eternal Kingdoms is a big collections of personal Kingdoms, either for players individually or for guilds as a group. But as with all things we will simply have to wait for more info and judge based upon that.
Imagine a world made of bricks – like Minecraft – only with bricks that are much, much smaller… So small, in fact, that you can’t see them. Small enough that you can carve a sphere out of a surface and leave it perfectly smooth. You can take a chunk out of a wall or a hill without it looking angular and blocky.
Voxel Farm is a technology library that does two things:
1. It allows you to create things out of voxels, which means that things can be easily broken apart and put back together in real time.
2. It includes a library set for generating Worlds procedurally. More than worlds, actually – castle walls, towers, buildings, rocks… you name it!
This technology, when mixed with a real time physics simulation, opens up a whole new world of potential gameplay.
2. What does a voxelized world allow players to do?
Blast holes in walls. Collapse towers on your opponent. Dig a tunnel beneath a castle wall, so that you can dig your way up into the courtyard and siege from within.
Voxel technology gives the players the ability to (literally) move mountains.
To see what’s possible, check out the Voxel Farm destruction demo, here.
3. Is this only on Campaign Worlds? Or on the Eternal Kingdoms are well?
We are using this technology for every Crowfall world.
On the Campaign worlds, the implications are obvious – if these Worlds are going to be destroyed eventually, anyway, why not make them fully destructible?
On the Eternal Kingdoms, the technology gives you the ability to customize your Kingdom or province in unique and interesting ways: construct a blacksmith shop, design a marketplace, build walls and towers and design a Castle.
All of this is possible -- provided, of course, that you win enough materials in the Campaign Worlds, first.
4. What does “procedural world” generation mean?
Most online games use 3D environments created by hand. This process is incredibly expensive and time consuming, as it requires the coordination of numerous artists and designers working for months to create every single area in the game.
Generating a game algorithmically means that this process is automated. Instead of having each World be created by a team of artists and designers, these individuals create assets (like trees and rocks and buildings) independently, as part of a “World creation toolset.” Engineers then “teach” an algorithm to create a multitude of Worlds using (and re-using) those parts.
Algorithmic terrain creation isn’t great for theme park games where the areas are created to match particular, pre-written storylines. However, it works GREAT for simulation and strategy games (like Minecraft, or Civilization) where your decisions – and the decisions of the other players – form the foundation of the experience.
5. What kind of things can be created algorithmically?
Terrain generation can be done algorithmically, resulting in realistic looking Worlds: oceans, continents, mountains, lakes, hills, valleys, rivers.
Subterranean areas can be included, as well… veins of iron or copper, twisting caverns and underground lakes and rivers. It can even be used to generate an endless landscape filled with ruins.
A great example of what can be accomplished with terrain generation can be found here.
Structures can be created algorithmically, as well. You can use “grammars” (sets of rules) to create walls and towers out of bricks, and castles out of walls and towers. See what kind of buildings can be “grown” algorithmically by checking out this video.
…and to see the real-time architectural tools in action, click here.
The two systems can even be used in conjunction, allowing you to build a continent and then “grow” villages, castles and towns in places where they would be most likely occur.
6. 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.
makes sense that they would use this tech to generate their worlds. In the end it will all depend on the implementation. And even if the worlds are a bit boring that's secondary to a good combat system. So yea so far they seem to have a lot of good ideas.
On February 13 2015 04:33 Sn0_Man wrote: TBH my biggest concern about the payment model is how they can build a playerbase with the upfront payment. I know it can happen but that barrier to entry does hurt.
Without that upfront payment the return on botting/hacking becomes completely out of control.
And if I've learned anything in the past ten years, it's that 'WoW-killers' (like it or not, that's what this is) have no trouble attracting attention.
On February 13 2015 04:33 Sn0_Man wrote: Well, passive levellingtraining of 3 characters seems like a preeeetty big advantage but we'll have to see how valuable it is to have a variety of levelledtrained characters.
And i'm sure somebody will whine that you can trade VIP tickets for in-game stuff setting up a virtual P2W system whereby I can buy VIP tickets and trade them for in-game items, but considering the economy style that they are going for, trading for external items is absolutely going to happen regardless of any attempt to prevent it, so I don't have issues with them doing it in a way that directs the revenue stream through them, makes it safe if you choose their method, etc.
TBH my biggest concern about the payment model is how they can build a playerbase with the upfront payment. I know it can happen but that barrier to entry does hurt.
I think the 3 character passive thing sounds like a nice balance of encouraging people to buy VIP without giving them a hard and fast advantage. I don't know of any entries in the genre that have ever really rewarded multiple characters on the same account with the possible exception of something like Eve Online where you might use one character to mine and another for combat; but even then I don't know if that's necessarily a huge advantage.
Not that I ever played Eve but I've heard a lot of good things about that game and this one looks to be borrowing heavily from a lot of Eve's positive aspects.
Obviously way too early to pass any sort of reasonable judgement but I remain hopeful.
Physics system means that objects in our game world move and react according to real-world physics rules. Objects have mass and that mass imparts inertia/momentum.
2. Don't most MMOs use physics to move things around?
Most games have a simple physics system to represent players falling and things like that. Our system uses a physics engine for this purpose and as such can account for a much more dynamic scene, for example, falling objects colliding with one another. Movement of debris from an explosion, or scene dressing does not require a physics simulation. We apply physics to objects that can be meaningfully involved in gameplay, like the player's avatar, chunks of terrain and so on.
3. Does that mean players can't stand inside of other players?
It does! We think this will lead to some fun behaviors in combat.
4. What kind of forces are applied? (Momentum, inertia, Gravity, etc?)
We use a real-world gravity system where objects have mass and that mass corresponds to what you would expect from every day experience; Big barrels full of sand would be heavy, small objects like weapons weigh a lot less. Our player powers can also create forces to do things like push or pull, and knock up or knockdown.
When you apply player powers to in world objects there is potential for crazy destruction. It could also get out of hand and make a giant mess, so we are watching this area carefully.
5. Does this system affect... characters, monsters, objects, buildings, terrain?
Yes, the system affects everything in the world.
6. Can players block other players from moving?
Yes they can, which should allow for some interesting battlefield formations. However, not all characters will have the same mass, so a larger character like a Centaur will have no trouble pushing a much smaller Assassin out of the way. Also, some characters may have special powers that enable them to teleport past other players, while others may have powers that prevent players from passing them. Controlling the battlefield will be a key strategy to master!
7. Has this technology been used before?
Yes. The Voxel Farm technology library has been used by Daybreak Game Company on their titles Landmark and up-coming MMO, EverQuest Next.
8. Will any of my ranged powers use physics?
Yes, some powers use physics forces/impulses to push objects around. Some powers create projectiles which can apply forces to whatever the projectile hits and explodes on. A fireball could hit a player, explode and knock them back a few feet. Or maybe a meteor could hit the ground next to a player, knock them into the air and destroy the terrain under them, so when they fall it is a fair distance.
9. Will any of my melee attacks use physics?
We want everyone to enjoy the physics in Crowfall, so yes!
10. Can I use physics to push another player off a cliff? Or down a mountain?
Absolutely, assuming the force applied to them is enough to move their mass. Some of the characters have much more mass than others like the Centaur or the Champion.
11. What physical properties do items have?
All objects in the world will have mass, and a corresponding weight based on the world's gravity. Items in your inventory will not contribute to your avatar's overall mass however.
12. What tactical considerations will I need to take in account during combat?
In most other combat systems the environment is very static and the physics pretty limited. With the introduction of physics and a destructible environment Crowfall is shaking things up, quite literally.
This technology allows all kinds of emergent behaviors that no one has seen before. Imagine blasting a hole in the ground, using a force to knock an enemy into it and summoning a giant rock over the hole.
13. How can players take advantage of this system (shield walls, or tactical formations)?
We anticipate the tank types to have positional control on the battlefields, they will create formations or walls to protect whom or whatever is behind them. In classic MMO’s the tanks have protected the more lightly armored members of the group, in Crowfall they may also be protecting a siege weapon or entrance to a tower. Of course the enemy may have specialists who dig through the terrain under those tanks to get to the targets.
14. Do projectiles use physics?
Yes they do.
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.
16. How does this system work with the destructible environment system?
If walls crash down on you, you will take damage. If the ground opens up below you will fall. The environment can be just as lethal as an enemy player.
Next Tuesday at 2:00pm CST, we'll be doing a twitch stream of the creation of the Guinecean Duelist character model! Our friends and partners at OMNOM workshop (who we rely on heavily to help us sculpt our game characters) have graciously offered to allow everyone a chance to see how the sausage is made. In this case, the "sausage" is a talking guinea pig with the saber and a flintlock pistol.
lol "Guinecean" is an interesting race (guinea pigs lol) also you double-copied the first 2 sections of the physics faq also thx for updating this topic
Seeing all these archetypes makes me hope they are just a way to show off the races / classes and that the game will not be limited to such specific combinations.
On February 20 2015 03:13 Gorsameth wrote: Seeing all these archetypes makes me hope they are just a way to show off the races / classes and that the game will not be limited to such specific combinations.
They did say that some archetypes would be race-locked and gender-locked. However, they seem to be keen on character customization.
I feel like there is no way they can deliver what they are promising. So many titles have advertised/said the same things..until it came time for implementation and they turn it into another typical MMO.
Hope they can deliver tho. Sounds fun.
Although F2P kills MMO's incredibly quickly.. f2p = no repercussions to botting and hacking as you just create a new one and let it go until you are happy or get caught, in which case you start it over.
IDK their payment model/structure will keep a lot of people away, perhaps myself included. Tired of pay-to-win in MMO's. The subscription model still seems to be the best imo.
On February 21 2015 08:07 MaestroSC wrote: I feel like there is no way they can deliver what they are promising. So many titles have advertised/said the same things..until it came time for implementation and they turn it into another typical MMO.
Hope they can deliver tho. Sounds fun.
Although F2P kills MMO's incredibly quickly.. f2p = no repercussions to botting and hacking as you just create a new one and let it go until you are happy or get caught, in which case you start it over.
IDK their payment model/structure will keep a lot of people away, perhaps myself included. Tired of pay-to-win in MMO's. The subscription model still seems to be the best imo.
Its a wait and see game about how much they can actually realize indeed.
Donno why your talking about F2P, Crowfall is confirmed to be B2P like GW2.
Pay to win is wayy to early to talk about. its something to be wary of for sure but come on, there is 0 info other then that there will be a store that they say wont have ingame advantages (how much of the proves to be true ofc reaches back to point 1. Wait and see).
On February 21 2015 08:07 MaestroSC wrote: I feel like there is no way they can deliver what they are promising. So many titles have advertised/said the same things..until it came time for implementation and they turn it into another typical MMO.
Hope they can deliver tho. Sounds fun.
Although F2P kills MMO's incredibly quickly.. f2p = no repercussions to botting and hacking as you just create a new one and let it go until you are happy or get caught, in which case you start it over.
IDK their payment model/structure will keep a lot of people away, perhaps myself included. Tired of pay-to-win in MMO's. The subscription model still seems to be the best imo.
Its a wait and see game about how much they can actually realize indeed.
Donno why your talking about F2P, Crowfall is confirmed to be B2P like GW2.
Pay to win is wayy to early to talk about. its something to be wary of for sure but come on, there is 0 info other then that there will be a store that they say wont have ingame advantages (how much of the proves to be true ofc reaches back to point 1. Wait and see).
Yeah I should have used B2P and not F2P.
But ill stand by my point, that i think a subscription model is still better for MMO's, because over the past 5+ years, I cant think of a cash shop that didnt (either slowly or quickly) turn unto a P2W cash shop.
Its just too hard to balance in MMO's. And I know that I personally, and several of my MMO friends, hate cash shops. How about everyone pays the same amount of money, and we all get the same shit as everyone else. Let the differences between players come from their different levels of dedication and play rather than "o he spent more money on the cash shop."
On February 21 2015 08:55 MaestroSC wrote: But ill stand by my point, that i think a subscription model is still better for MMO's, because over the past 5+ years, I cant think of a cash shop that didnt (either slowly or quickly) turn unto a P2W cash shop.
Its just too hard to balance in MMO's. And I know that I personally, and several of my MMO friends, hate cash shops. How about everyone pays the same amount of money, and we all get the same shit as everyone else. Let the differences between players come from their different levels of dedication and play rather than "o he spent more money on the cash shop."
If you're playing a monthly fee MMO, you're still going to have pay to win, just from 3rd party organizations. Not only that, but I have no idea what you mean by the implication that every cash shop turned into pay to win; there's plenty that haven't. Some of the most successful games out there that have cash shops are still not pay to win such as DOTA or TF2. What examples are you even talking about that turned into pay to win which weren't originally?
Even monthly fee games have had bonus —typically cosmetic— content that people can get from purchasing another game, expansion pack, or real-life item. Then there's the monthly fee games that are still "pay to win" despite being monthly fee. No matter how slight the advantage one gets in EVE it is an absolute advantage nonetheless that players get by spending additional money on the game. It may need to be a lot of money, and it may not be a ton of help, but it's still help, and it will give a person victory if everything else was equal.
I personally strongly dislike monthly fee games. If one gets really into a game a person ends up spending hundreds of dollars more than otherwise. To me there's not as much incentive to keep playing a game when there's constantly this fee hovering over one's head.
If they can re-capture the magic of Shadowbane while fixing its flaws, I will play the shit out of their game.
Although, from what I see of character creation, it won't be as deep and rich of a system, which is disappointing. Optimizing builds in Shadowbane was such a pleasure.
On February 21 2015 08:55 MaestroSC wrote: But ill stand by my point, that i think a subscription model is still better for MMO's, because over the past 5+ years, I cant think of a cash shop that didnt (either slowly or quickly) turn unto a P2W cash shop.
Its just too hard to balance in MMO's. And I know that I personally, and several of my MMO friends, hate cash shops. How about everyone pays the same amount of money, and we all get the same shit as everyone else. Let the differences between players come from their different levels of dedication and play rather than "o he spent more money on the cash shop."
If you're playing a monthly fee MMO, you're still going to have pay to win, just from 3rd party organizations. Not only that, but I have no idea what you mean by the implication that every cash shop turned into pay to win; there's plenty that haven't. Some of the most successful games out there that have cash shops are still not pay to win such as DOTA or TF2. What examples are you even talking about that turned into pay to win which weren't originally?
Even monthly fee games have had bonus —typically cosmetic— content that people can get from purchasing another game, expansion pack, or real-life item. Then there's the monthly fee games that are still "pay to win" despite being monthly fee. No matter how slight the advantage one gets in EVE it is an absolute advantage nonetheless that players get by spending additional money on the game. It may need to be a lot of money, and it may not be a ton of help, but it's still help, and it will give a person victory if everything else was equal.
I personally strongly dislike monthly fee games. If one gets really into a game a person ends up spending hundreds of dollars more than otherwise. To me there's not as much incentive to keep playing a game when there's constantly this fee hovering over one's head.
nothing in EVE's cash shop gives you any advantages, unless you count having a robotic arm for coolness factor an advantage.
On February 21 2015 08:55 MaestroSC wrote: But ill stand by my point, that i think a subscription model is still better for MMO's, because over the past 5+ years, I cant think of a cash shop that didnt (either slowly or quickly) turn unto a P2W cash shop.
Its just too hard to balance in MMO's. And I know that I personally, and several of my MMO friends, hate cash shops. How about everyone pays the same amount of money, and we all get the same shit as everyone else. Let the differences between players come from their different levels of dedication and play rather than "o he spent more money on the cash shop."
If you're playing a monthly fee MMO, you're still going to have pay to win, just from 3rd party organizations. Not only that, but I have no idea what you mean by the implication that every cash shop turned into pay to win; there's plenty that haven't. Some of the most successful games out there that have cash shops are still not pay to win such as DOTA or TF2. What examples are you even talking about that turned into pay to win which weren't originally?
Even monthly fee games have had bonus —typically cosmetic— content that people can get from purchasing another game, expansion pack, or real-life item. Then there's the monthly fee games that are still "pay to win" despite being monthly fee. No matter how slight the advantage one gets in EVE it is an absolute advantage nonetheless that players get by spending additional money on the game. It may need to be a lot of money, and it may not be a ton of help, but it's still help, and it will give a person victory if everything else was equal.
I personally strongly dislike monthly fee games. If one gets really into a game a person ends up spending hundreds of dollars more than otherwise. To me there's not as much incentive to keep playing a game when there's constantly this fee hovering over one's head.
nothing in EVE's cash shop gives you any advantages, unless you count having a robotic arm for coolness factor an advantage.
I assume he means Plex letting you acquire in game currency for real money.
Well I was playing MMOs before f2p even existed apart from free games. But the moment ebay saw the light of day p2w started to go boom, before it was just people pming you and offering you around 50 - 1000 dollar for certain items. F2pay just switched out who receives the money. Now its the publisher instead of shady ebay guy and his army of 1000 bots. But it changes nothing since there will always be the one that is best buddies with the game masters and who will have get out of jail cards for bug abusing and getting ahead that way or worse.
The always present p2w aspect of MMOs makes a pvp orientation rather risky Imo. The moment the shady people aren't kept in order by the game masters, everyone will start leaving the ship. Same with cash shops and the moment you decide to up the amount of money per month someone has to invest.
Happened in my MMO recently and boy did the player numbers drop, because the guild that is best buddies with the game masters possesses 80% of the new pay a ton to win items. :p (in average you need to pay 200 euro to obtain said item as getting it is luck based) Sorry for the off topic. Just hate free 2 pay with passion.
Literally every online game is P2W to some extent. In every game that has some items / gold / whatever that can be traded, there are people who will do so for real money rather than in game currency, nothing you can do about it. And honestly, as the old saying goes, 'time is money'; if someone prefers to spend 50$ instead of grinding for a couple hours, so what. The only 'real' P2W is when you start selling stuff that can't otherwise be acquired in game and you literally HAVE to spend money to be on equal footing, otherwise who honestly gives a damn whether the guy ahead of you is such because he doesn't have a job and spends all day grinding, or because he does have a job and spent some of his paycheck on the game?
edit: that said, I do think that subscriptions in MMOs aren't a bad thing simply because that gives the developer resources needed to continue updating their game without having to devote too much time on coming up with new 'carrots' to put into the cash shop, but nowadays subscription games are more or less out of style and it's not very likely that they'll be making a big comeback any time soon, so it's kind of pointless lamenting the shittiness of other business models.
There's a difference too when the items that you are buying come from the game versus coming from an item shop. With items coming from the game uh someone has to have those items first before they can sell them. If the game has a balanced economy prices should adjust as more players attempt to buy certain goods. Then on top of that anything 'top end' would be moved around rather than adding additional unfairness to the system. If someone has the Sword of Ultimate Decimation and that's something that's going to always defeat you then the game isn't any more or less unfair if person A or person B has it.
That bloodstone ruleset sounds fun. Defenders cannot just camp in their castle if they want point, they have to get out to cash it with the risk of both losing the bloodstone ( = points) and having less defense in the castle during that time.
I'm really curious to see how this goes in the future.
I hope their kickstarter is successful because I am interested in this game but MMO's are so dependent on implementation and realization that I cant convince myself to spend money on it now. There are to many things that can very easily turn this into a horrible game.
If they can deliver it will be worth the 50 for the game anyway.
As appealing as the game looks, I'm too reluctant about crowdfunding and "preordering".
They will reach it for sure though. $300k after less than 24 hours, sick.
We'll see. Maybe I will pledge $60. I'll keep an eye on it in the following days.
I'm still very confused about Eternal Kingdoms.
The FAQ says this:
"24. How do I get an Eternal Kingdom? Each player account is automatically granted an Eternal Kingdom, the first time they log into the game. This Kingdom will be shared by all characters on that account. As the owner of a Kingdom, you are the Monarch of that World. That means you get to set many of the rules that govern that World and control the land and the structures within it."
It seems so... meaningless? If everyone has a kingdom, then how does the fealty system work? What is the point of giving land to a vassal if they also have a kingdom by default?
On February 25 2015 02:57 Spaylz wrote: As appealing as the game looks, I'm too reluctant about crowdfunding and "preordering".
They will reach it for sure though. $300k after less than 24 hours, sick.
We'll see. Maybe I will pledge $60. I'll keep an eye on it in the following days.
I'm still very confused about Eternal Kingdoms.
The FAQ says this:
"24. How do I get an Eternal Kingdom? Each player account is automatically granted an Eternal Kingdom, the first time they log into the game. This Kingdom will be shared by all characters on that account. As the owner of a Kingdom, you are the Monarch of that World. That means you get to set many of the rules that govern that World and control the land and the structures within it."
It seems so... meaningless? If everyone has a kingdom, then how does the fealty system work? What is the point of giving land to a vassal if they also have a kingdom by default?
I would assume because of buildings you can build with spoils from the campaigns.
I think most personal kingdoms will be fairly useless. However, some will be popular marketplaces where you can trade and purchase valuable materials, crafted items, etc. And you need a place to build your crafting tools etc, so while you could do that on your own world it's probably preferable to do it in a populated place with easy access to both customers and suppliers.
Since you can impose a tax on commerce in your kingdom and a property tax etc, it follows that having a "destination" kingdom would be exceedingly profitable, so there's huge incentive to improving your local kingdom and providing incentive to potential vassals.
On February 25 2015 02:57 Spaylz wrote: As appealing as the game looks, I'm too reluctant about crowdfunding and "preordering".
They will reach it for sure though. $300k after less than 24 hours, sick.
We'll see. Maybe I will pledge $60. I'll keep an eye on it in the following days.
I'm still very confused about Eternal Kingdoms.
The FAQ says this:
"24. How do I get an Eternal Kingdom? Each player account is automatically granted an Eternal Kingdom, the first time they log into the game. This Kingdom will be shared by all characters on that account. As the owner of a Kingdom, you are the Monarch of that World. That means you get to set many of the rules that govern that World and control the land and the structures within it."
It seems so... meaningless? If everyone has a kingdom, then how does the fealty system work? What is the point of giving land to a vassal if they also have a kingdom by default?
I would think being a part of a guild makes conquering campaigns easier. You can either join a campaign solo and ally with an in-campaign PUG group or temporarily with another guild that's joined that campaign. Again, that's just a guess, but if that's the case, wouldn't it be pragmatic to create or join your own guild to dominate campaigns?
Hmm... In that case, it looks like they built this entire concept around the Kickstarter campaign and the cash shop for later on.
Since everyone gets an Eternal Kingdom, and since the game will be horribly boring if some of these kingdoms don't become social hubs for players to hang out or play the game by default, it's quite important that some players are able to build a bigger kingdom right off the bat.
Thanks to the Kickstarter tiers which grant certificates to expand your land, castles, walls and so on, big contributors will have a chance of making their kingdom more significant from the very start, thus increasing the likelihood that said kingdom will become popular. I would also imagine that a large portion of the cash shop will revolve around that, and will offer players the ability to buy items to bolster their kingdom.
It's actually pretty clever. Provides incentive to spend money, seemingly doesn't break the game, and creates an opportunity to have several large hubs for players to socialise. It could completely backfire though. If too many people spend too much money to try and build big kingdoms, the population will be really spread thin, and the game won't look as alive.
I suppose that could be solved by campaigns. I definitely think players are expecting Eternal Kingdoms to have some meaning though. Battles, sieges and feuds need to happen within them in between campaigns in order to create a dynamic community.
Eh, I think I'll back them. Chances are high that I'll regret it, but I'm a chump.
On February 25 2015 05:26 Spaylz wrote: Hmm... In that case, it looks like they built this entire concept around the Kickstarter campaign and the cash shop for later on.
Since everyone gets an Eternal Kingdom, and since the game will be horribly boring if some of these kingdoms don't become social hubs for players to hang out or play the game by default, it's quite important that some players are able to build a bigger kingdom right off the bat.
Thanks to the Kickstarter tiers which grant certificates to expand your land, castles, walls and so on, big contributors will have a chance of making their kingdom more significant from the very start, thus increasing the likelihood that said kingdom will become popular. I would also imagine that a large portion of the cash shop will revolve around that, and will offer players the ability to buy items to bolster their kingdom.
It's actually pretty clever. Provides incentive to spend money, seemingly doesn't break the game, and creates an opportunity to have several large hubs for players to socialise. It could completely backfire though. If too many people spend too much money to try and build big kingdoms, the population will be really spread thin, and the game won't look as alive.
I suppose that could be solved by campaigns. I definitely think players are expecting Eternal Kingdoms to have some meaning though. Battles, sieges and feuds need to happen within them in between campaigns in order to create a dynamic community.
Eh, I think I'll back them. Chances are high that I'll regret it, but I'm a chump.
They say (which ofc means nothing) that resources wont go in the cash shop and I assume they will be needed to build anything that has actual ingame advantages.
That bloodstone ruleset sounds fun. Defenders cannot just camp in their castle if they want point, they have to get out to cash it with the risk of both losing the bloodstone ( = points) and having less defense in the castle during that time.
I'm really curious to see how this goes in the future.
Bloodstone trees is basically the Shadowbane system which was a blast and then a victory condition on top of that seems like it will help promote groups like you had in DAoC of 10v10 bands roaming around. Both systems had problems and issues, but it could be pretty interesting together.
Though I wonder if big guilds would just all go around as 1 gigantic group to drop off as many stones as they could safely.
On February 28 2015 07:12 Sn0_Man wrote: I'm just kind of assuming that the art assets will improve fairly dramatically before release but who knows
I thought the assets looked great =/. Maybe not 100% of them, but I do like the stylized look without being happy cartoony or feeling blocky.
Some of the UIs especially looked nice to me.
Also MMOs like this have big performance concerns even for boxes that run well. When you're encouraging and having huge populations in a single area you need to be able to handle that well and while someone's system may be able to render 40 other player characters all fighting doing the same for 100, 150, 200, or more may not go so well; especially with siege weaponry and destructible terrain on top of that. Ideally you wouldn't need to just resort to incredibly close fog of war for these types of battles.
Alright well there's less than 48 hours left to go on the kickstarter $1.4Million now raised out of the original $800,000 goal. Most of the stretch goals seemed somewhat uninspiring, but regardless worth having I guess. Still a stretch goal at 1.5M for minotaurs (kinda cool) and a new ruleset (a cop out imo since rulesets change all the time). Also if they get 15,000 backers we get VR integration apparently which i don't know how to feel about because I haven't tried VR
It sounds cool, but I am pretty skeptical that they can make a quality MMO on that budget. They exceeded their funding goal, but they are still WAY below the average cost of a modern game, much less an MMO with so many ambitious design goals.
On March 25 2015 06:25 karazax wrote: It sounds cool, but I am pretty skeptical that they can make a quality MMO on that budget. They exceeded their funding goal, but they are still WAY below the average cost of a modern game, much less an MMO with so many ambitious design goals.
Good thing then that the kickstarter but one of several ways they are raising funds, Investors/licensing ect. Source
That said. Yes it is all a 'wait and see' game because its easy to give really great idea's and another to actually make a great game.
On February 28 2015 07:04 Thrill wrote: Why did they have to make it cartoony?
Accessibility (lower pc specs requirement) allows for greater playerbase Development (fewer polys means faster modeling and potentially faster texturing) DLC/shop skins (cartoony means faster creation of shop items - think TF2 hats)
well it's also a very low-budget engine and the entire concept saves them from having to design the endless quests and raid experiences that take up a huge amount of development time in traditional mmo's. Then there's the ability to iterate infinitely on balance which means that you don't need the level of testing that other games do.
basically it's actually in the grand scheme of things an exceedingly inexpensive mmo to make.
On April 07 2016 20:21 Harris1st wrote: sooo where is this at? any estimates?
And how does it fair compared to similiar stuff like Black Desert, Chamelot Unchained, ...?
Here's some very quick info: Currently in pre-alpha, test access (I guess only Alpha 3 and more expensive pledges currently) is rather expensive BUT there will be open beta "this winter" i.e. free tests = it's enough to just register on the site.
I estimate it will launch sometime 2017, likely not in the first half. Black desert has more realistic graphics, and that's it. Content and tech-wise, BDO is already dated game compared to Crowfall or Camelot Unchained, nothing against BDO - simply these are next gen, made much later.
Comparison CF to CU, impossible in just couple words...for what it's worth, CU is topping my list and CF is on the close second place. with loads of empty space behind
PS while I'm here, siege tests (voxel destruction!) began - here's some player made fotage (it's still early, rough, missing...yadda...you know it all):
Art+Craft is now focused on the final milestone which should be delivered in February 2020.
This milestone includes: - the Forstweaver - the Dregs (GvG campaign) - refineries - caravans - mounts - ability to create, move and destroy buildings - remaining disciplines etc.