So has anyone else been checking this out? They launched their Kickstarter yesterday morning and raised half the $800K by the afternoon!
Despite having a terrible name, they have definitely got some interesting ideas about evolving MMO gameplay and procedural content generation. They will be using the same voxel technology as the new Everquest game, and they have Raph Koster of Star Wars: Galaxies fame on the creative team.
Players will have persistent characters which grow stronger over time, and a permanent homeworld, but the actual campaign worlds will decay over time and eventually vanish, replaced by new worlds, which are procedurally generated.
Crowfall Kickstarter
Crowfall Website
I like the sound of that.
It'll be interesting to see if they can pull it off. Voxels have always been really resource-intensive, even in a single-player environment.
I'm kind of disappointed at how generic it looks. Some of those screenshots, if you'd told me they were from World of Warcraft I'd have believed you.
It'll be interesting to see if they can pull it off. Voxels have always been really resource-intensive, even in a single-player environment.
I'm kind of disappointed at how generic it looks. Some of those screenshots, if you'd told me they were from World of Warcraft I'd have believed you.
I know, we really need MORE sexy elves with long ears flinging frostbolts?
Yeah, I get the sense that they are really hedging their bets by trying to incorporate a lot of VERY familiar tropes and marketing buzzwords (I mean "Throne War=Game of Thrones", c'mon!), while choosing other areas to innovate pretty dramatically from the norm. Probably pretty smart from a marketing standpoint.
I get excited when people mention Shadowbane.
It'll be interesting to see if they can pull it off. Voxels have always been really resource-intensive, even in a single-player environment.
Which is one of the issues Landmark and Everquest Next have.
Got in on the $ 34 tier.
Looks interesting.
yea lot of cool stuff there and enough SWG, AC, to make me excited. Still proof is in the pudding. Have to wait and see what they try to deliver.
I backed at the $30 level. Everything they've discussed sounds exactly like what I want. Plus, I know the Lead Artist, so I felt extra compelled to back.
I backed at the $30 level. Everything they've discussed sounds exactly like what I want. Plus, I know the Lead Artist, so I felt extra compelled to back.
Dave Greco? His stuff is just jawdroppingly good.
It's amazing how concept art like that jacks up the perceived quality of the entire project.
EDIT: (I was just pondering this while looking at the Kickstarter for Underworld Ascendant, which is struggling to barely make it's funding. While I love all those former Looking Glass studios people, their concept art and early in-game shots are a bit rougher, and it really changes the perception of the whole game for a lot of people, I think.)
Tkyl wrote:I backed at the $30 level. Everything they've discussed sounds exactly like what I want. Plus, I know the Lead Artist, so I felt extra compelled to back.
Dave Greco? His stuff is just jawdroppingly good.
Yep, worked with him on Homefront. I've always been very impressed with his work.
So they got funded, and I like how modest their stretch goals are so far.
I wonder when they will figure out that the reason EVE Online works is that it is in 3D space. And that 3D space makes it an order of magnitude harder for griefers to find you. Remove the third dimension or restrict players to a ground plane and it becomes a griefers heyday. (I guess unless they let everyone fly at an early and accessible level...)
I want to back Camelot Unchained too but they don't seem to get that removing the vertical leveling grind with horizontal progression is counteracted by creating a crafting grind. (there is only a basic amount of info known but it appears you will have to craft arrows and spells require reagents/components)
^ partial intersect of reply
Strikes me as more of a PlanetSide style, PvP-centric game played out over a few months resetting campaign with a procedurally generated world rather than a full blown MMO(RPG)? I don't think it has instanced dungeons or anything along those lines. I suspect the layered risk vs reward server types (from "The Dregs" to "God's Reach") coupled with the fact that these 'campaigns' will have various restrictions/settings enacted at the start of each one should offer various sweet spots for people's tastes in that regard. Also, looks like the "Eternal Kingdom" for a player can be tailored via restrictions on such things. All in all, not entirely sure what to make of it based on the Kickstarter.
Well I understood the design parallels to EVE but there was one bit of confusion. The supposed "safe" sector is governed by player rules. So if the players decide they want corpse loot ffa, then that is what will happen in the safe zone? No thanks...
I like the idea of it so I backed it at the $34 block BUT my opinion, and these guys should know this - edit: hmm trying to put this the right way: This is going to have the same problem as all the serious PvP games (read:Korean) types have in the US. You HAVE to grind and spend massive amounts of time to be able to join that content. Is the player pool big enough (and will it sustain) for this to be successful?
I like the idea of it so I backed it at the $34 block BUT my opinion, and these guys should know this - edit: hmm trying to put this the right way: This is going to have the same problem as all the serious PvP games (read:Korean) types have in the US. You HAVE to grind and spend massive amounts of time to be able to join that content. Is the player pool big enough (and will it sustain) for this to be successful?
Enlighten within the following context? My base understanding is that the 'great divide' between characters of different levels is, by comparison, mercifully small. The fact that character creation has maluses/malus er traits[?] anyways, it seems more like a battle arena for RPG character builds where munchkining out is OK and this gated by the limit of character slots. Admittedly, the last MMO(xyz) I was heavily invested in was UO and so much has changed since then. I'm sure I'm wearing a bumpkin flag on my sleeve here and am missing the larger picture of your comment. I'm still approaching this as an MMO in the same way I'd look at a semi-persistent shooter as an MMO.
Couple of things...
First the leveling will primarily be done EVE style. There is grinding involved, but it will be done for time and not quantity.
http://crowfall.com/#/news/skill-tra...
I don't think levels will matter as much as the diversity and combination of the skills/advantages/disadvantages.
As for the grind comment you're used to the concept if you've passed on the mmos since UO.
Here's another video with a good break down of the game.
karmajay wrote:I like the idea of it so I backed it at the $34 block BUT my opinion, and these guys should know this - edit: hmm trying to put this the right way: This is going to have the same problem as all the serious PvP games (read:Korean) types have in the US. You HAVE to grind and spend massive amounts of time to be able to join that content. Is the player pool big enough (and will it sustain) for this to be successful?
Enlighten within the following context? My base understanding is that the 'great divide' between characters of different levels is, by comparison, mercifully small. The fact that character creation has maluses/malus er traits[?] anyways, it seems more like a battle arena for RPG character builds where munchkining out is OK and this gated by the limit of character slots. Admittedly, the last MMO(xyz) I was heavily invested in was UO and so much has changed since then. I'm sure I'm wearing a bumpkin flag on my sleeve here and am missing the larger picture of your comment. I'm still approaching this as an MMO in the same way I'd look at a semi-persistent shooter as an MMO.
Well it looks like Ranalin posted a link that seems may make this point moot which is good.
Just for discussion, in the past, massive PvP MMOs advertise the big wars and big group PvP content as the main fun point of the game. This could include owning castles, etc. The issue is there are plenty of people that can play 12 hours a day. So, realistically, to participate and have fun in the BIG content, you had to grind your way up to the higher levels, i.e. keep up with those people that can play so much more every day.
Here's another good video that talks about various aspects of Crowfall.
This is seeming more and more like a 3 month persistant MOBA with an emphasis on the massive part.
This is seeming more and more like a 3 month persistant MOBA with an emphasis on the massive part.
At the very strictest sense of the word, maybe, but so many RPG elements and other MMO trappings that I cant agree with this.
@ ranalin, karmajay, and TKyl,
Good information and vids there. The crafting, while likely not my thing, looks interesting. Given some of the dev background, I wonder if this aspect will be similar to early/mid UO. There were always a handful of guys on a given server who were the go-to or 'brand name' guys that you wanted your weapons from. I remember the price spread being absurd -- rusty bicycles vs. Mercedes, man.
At the very strictest sense of the word, maybe, but so many RPG elements and other MMO trappings that I cant agree with this.
Well one of my thoughts is that a lot of those RPG elements, like a more involved loot system, are severely limited by the 3 month persistence. You can loot stuff and use it for 3 months but then you can keep only 40-100% of it and then may not be able to bring it into a new 3 month campaign if the players change the rules for the region you want to fight in.
It may actually work in my favor since I am an altoholic. If a rule set that is popular with the community at large is that most of the regions host campaigns with new-character-only or low-skill-character restrictions... Or you can keep your character but your skills are capped at low levels at the beginning of the campaign.
This looks neat: a detailed explanation of character progression.
At the very strictest sense of the word, maybe, but so many RPG elements and other MMO trappings that I cant agree with this.Well one of my thoughts is that a lot of those RPG elements, like a more involved loot system, are severely limited by the 3 month persistence. You can loot stuff and use it for 3 months but then you can keep only 40-100% of it and then may not be able to bring it into a new 3 month campaign if the players change the rules for the region you want to fight in.
It may actually work in my favor since I am an altoholic. If a rule set that is popular with the community at large is that most of the regions host campaigns with new-character-only or low-skill-character restrictions... Or you can keep your character but your skills are capped at low levels at the beginning of the campaign.
In the videos they stressed that you keep your loot and progression between each year.
But you may not be able to take it with you into the new campaign depending on the rules set by players.
But you may not be able to take it with you into the new campaign depending on the rules set by players.
I'm not sure they've ever said the rules in the campaign worlds are able to be set by the players (the Eternal Kingdoms are another story). I thought the devs set up the campaign rules, with each band getting more "hardcore" as you approach the center of the map.
They've said they will monitor player feedback on the rulesets, and perhaps try some wacky campaign ideas and abandon ones that don't work out so well. But I don't think the players themselves will get to set these parameters, at least not initially.
Okay but that doesn't change the fact that in a couple of screen shots the settings have been as such
Import rules - (ranges from no items can be brought in to "some" items can be brought in)
Loot Rules - (ranges from %100 inventory loot to %100 inventory plus 20-30% chance to drop an equipped item)
Export rules - varies from 60/40% winner/loser to 100/0% winner/loser
Item Decay - varies from 0-30% on death
Faction Rules - 3 faction to anything goes FFA (and note that friendly-fire is not optional... seemingly at any tier)
So even at the tamest level your weapons an armor are safe from looting but everything else will be gone. You will only be able to bring in "some" items from prior campaigns. And you will only be able to take 40-60% of what you acquired during the campaign. (I am leaning that this only applies to inventory items which I believe means crafting mats and not equipment like armor and weapons. Being only able to take 40-60% of armor and weapons at the campaign's end is a terribad idea.)
They still have not said what Eternal Kingoms and player rules means. Hopefully it is something like Eve's player elected council and not fair game for either carebear or FFA. Or if it is such, there will be safe zones or you will be able to bounce from campaign to campaign to avoid being insta ganked in between campaigns. (if there is time in between them?)
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