Camelot Unchained - New MMO Kickstarter Project

Comixbooks said:
Just watched the video on Kickstarter sounds good still wish they had some NPCs in there for hecks sake.
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There WILL be npc's, no PVE loot drops doesn't mean no npc's.

Mark has mentioned having "dragons" and other types of creatures in the game.

Also with the world, it'd seem a bit barren to have no animals or anything out in it.
 
I have never Kickstarted anything, and I think an MMO is just about the last thing I'd ever donate to. These days it takes an insane amount of money to produce a game that contains everything that players demand in a MMO. I really have little faith in a small company on a $5M budget. Especially when games with 20x the budget have crashed and burned.
 
bpizzle1 said:
I have never Kickstarted anything, and I think an MMO is just about the last thing I'd ever donate to. These days it takes an insane amount of money to produce a game that contains everything that players demand in a MMO. I really have little faith in a small company on a $5M budget. Especially when games with 20x the budget have crashed and burned.
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The game is being built around RVR and player crafting.

It is not being built like most other mmo's (WoW, Rift, Tera, etc) that focuses on PVE with a huge amount of npc's, quests, loot drops, etc.

Also DAOC was made on a much smaller budget back in their games even when it had PVE as well.

A large part of mmo's budget is marketing, which can be even more then the game itself costs.
 
Stiler said:
Did you watch the video?

He's throwing in 2million of his own money on top of this + he has secured another million (most likely from private investors) so 5million if the kickstarter hits the 2 million goal. Plus he said that he is not taking any money from this to pay his salary/perks/benefits, it will go to the game/developers.
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You live in a fantasy land if you think 5 million will cut it for an MMO. Even without the quest focused content there is a cost to simply generating and maintaining the content you do have (even if its PVP only). There is also a logistical cost in terms of bandwidth , hardware and a support staff for both customer issues and an IT staff. And you'll need a development staff to keep generating content for the game. You could start up an MMO bare bones but once it has its first major outage or seriously game breaking bug , its going to take even more time and money to fix such issues. A bad launch can murder a game no matter who stands behind it , MMO's have a horrible history of being broken day 1 until around day 60+. Everyone knows when you play an MMO during its launch you are basically giving your money to the developer and saying "I know that your game will have growing pains day 1 , its normal for an MMO to experience such". Doing a Kickstarter game is a huge gamble anyway , throwing an MMO into the mix then you are really dicing the odds against yourself.

I just do not see this one being a success. If it gets fully funded and goes over a decent amount I'll probably chuck in some money simply because of my love for DAOC. But when it comes to stacking the deck a Kickstarter MMO is about as stacked against as you can be.
 
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Godmachine said:
I just do not see this one being a success.
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My feeling as well. I think people here are confused that those saying it doesn't have the funding want it to fail. No, we really don't. I'd love to see a good PvP MMO. However I don't feel that they've got the resources they need to succeed. MMOs are just expensive. You've got all the normal costs of developing a game, usually on a much larger scale, but then you have all the costs of developing an online service, all the back-end equipment, programming, and support. That's not a small feat (speaking as someone who runs backend servers for a living).

It's just an expensive setup, and if you try and do it on a small budget, the results aren't likely to be good. A few million on Kickstarter is enough to make a game, provided you don't go with a bunch of AAA features like full voice acting and such. It isn't enough to make an MMO.
 
Sycraft said:
My feeling as well. I think people here are confused that those saying it doesn't have the funding want it to fail. No, we really don't. I'd love to see a good PvP MMO. However I don't feel that they've got the resources they need to succeed. MMOs are just expensive. You've got all the normal costs of developing a game, usually on a much larger scale, but then you have all the costs of developing an online service, all the back-end equipment, programming, and support. That's not a small feat (speaking as someone who runs backend servers for a living).

It's just an expensive setup, and if you try and do it on a small budget, the results aren't likely to be good. A few million on Kickstarter is enough to make a game, provided you don't go with a bunch of AAA features like full voice acting and such. It isn't enough to make an MMO.
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No doubt MMO's are expensive, but it can be done in this case on a tight budget. Here's why:

1. Kickstarter is just to get the project started, The game already has $1 Million from outside investors; expect this to go up if the game meets it's $2 Million goal.
2. Kickstarter will give everyone an idea of just how many people are interested in this game, allowing them to properly plan out their server expenses.
3. It will have a monthly sub, so there's that!

It'll be tough, and they now this is a niche game, but it can be done.
 
Regardless, I don't see anything worth pre-ordering the game for given that it might be a giant pile of crap. Brad McQuaid had a better track record than Mark Jacobs when they put out Vanguard, and that was a steaming heap. I will wait and see on the reviews.
 
arr4ws said:
600k in what .. 1 day?
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That's really just a function of two things;
#1 see my sig
#2 people are so *desperate* for an MMO that's different from the ones they are tired of that they are willingly throwing money away at just a sliver of hope that their wish of a different MMO will come true.

The reality is that today MMO players are significantly different, as a culture, than MMO players were when EQ1 first came out. Back then MMOs were a niche played by a small fraction of gamers. While there were some pricks present the majority of MMO players were actually helpful and friendly toward each other.

Today this is no longer the case, and will be even less so in a game that relies on ruining someone elses' day by dominating them.

EQ1 was so hugely successful and is where for so many of us the fondest memories of MMO times are from because it was PvE and it was collaborative and challenging. This is no longer the case today because the gaming population as a whole doesn't want this type of game anymore. Instead people want games with instant gratification, where they can be assholes toward each other to release their RL frustrations, and where the content can be done solo so you don't have to put up with the assholes around you.

There may be some people here who say Nooooooo we want it to be like EQ1 was ...., no you don't! If you did you would be playing EQ1, or Vanguard.

The only winners for this project are the people who will get money to pursue their hobby.

To sum this up; Stop the madness!
 
Thuleman said:
That's really just a function of two things;
#1 see my sig
#2 people are so *desperate* for an MMO that's different from the ones they are tired of that they are willingly throwing money away at just a sliver of hope that their wish of a different MMO will come true.

The reality is that today MMO players are significantly different, as a culture, than MMO players were when EQ1 first came out. Back then MMOs were a niche played by a small fraction of gamers. While there were some pricks present the majority of MMO players were actually helpful and friendly toward each other.
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Nice summary. I tend to agree that the people who are throwing money at a project like this are trying to get back an early MMO gaming experience that, quite simply, cannot be achieved again. Everyone has fond memories of their first relic raid or gate camp in DAoC, the first time they saw Blackburrow after or running from Sand Giants in EQ. Nostalgia is a funny thing.
 
Thuleman said:
Today this is no longer the case, and will be even less so in a game that relies on ruining someone elses' day by dominating them.

EQ1 was so hugely successful and is where for so many of us the fondest memories of MMO times are from because it was PvE and it was collaborative and challenging. This is no longer the case today because the gaming population as a whole doesn't want this type of game anymore. Instead people want games with instant gratification, where they can be assholes toward each other to release their RL frustrations, and where the content can be done solo so you don't have to put up with the assholes around you.
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To be honest, this sounds exactly like UO... maybe not so much the "instant gratification" part, but macroing alleviated some of the time to truly get involved in everything.
 
Sounds interesting. I do like the fact that he's matching 150% of the KS contribution once it gets to that level.
 
sounds nice, sorta want to spend the 180 on the internal testing phase since i have almost endless free time but i doubt ill have the extra 80 i need before they all get snagged up. 204 out of 500 left
 
Sycraft said:
My feeling as well. I think people here are confused that those saying it doesn't have the funding want it to fail. No, we really don't. I'd love to see a good PvP MMO. However I don't feel that they've got the resources they need to succeed. MMOs are just expensive. You've got all the normal costs of developing a game, usually on a much larger scale, but then you have all the costs of developing an online service, all the back-end equipment, programming, and support. That's not a small feat (speaking as someone who runs backend servers for a living).

It's just an expensive setup, and if you try and do it on a small budget, the results aren't likely to be good. A few million on Kickstarter is enough to make a game, provided you don't go with a bunch of AAA features like full voice acting and such. It isn't enough to make an MMO.
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Mark Jacobs has developed more then one mmo, I think he undertands what it will take to develop the game, fund wise. reaching the goal, + what he throws in and then other investors coming on board (after seeing it raise 2million on it's own without any investors) can be enough.

Without the PVE elements + huge marketing clogging it up that can drastically cut down on the expenses.

Eq1/DAOC didn't cost nearly as much as mmo's compared to todays games, such as SW:TOR which had such an over inflated budget with marketing and all their PVE focus, they wasted so much money on it.

Yes mmo's do take a bigger risk (ongoing costs) but also remember, this game is not free to play, it WILL have a subscription (with higher reward tiers getting extra months play time, and some getting "lifetime" subs (well $1 year subs, per kickstarter rules).

Thuleman said:
That's really just a function of two things;
#1 see my sig
#2 people are so *desperate* for an MMO that's different from the ones they are tired of that they are willingly throwing money away at just a sliver of hope that their wish of a different MMO will come true.

The reality is that today MMO players are significantly different, as a culture, than MMO players were when EQ1 first came out. Back then MMOs were a niche played by a small fraction of gamers. While there were some pricks present the majority of MMO players were actually helpful and friendly toward each other.

Today this is no longer the case, and will be even less so in a game that relies on ruining someone elses' day by dominating them.

EQ1 was so hugely successful and is where for so many of us the fondest memories of MMO times are from because it was PvE and it was collaborative and challenging. This is no longer the case today because the gaming population as a whole doesn't want this type of game anymore. Instead people want games with instant gratification, where they can be assholes toward each other to release their RL frustrations, and where the content can be done solo so you don't have to put up with the assholes around you.

There may be some people here who say Nooooooo we want it to be like EQ1 was ...., no you don't! If you did you would be playing EQ1, or Vanguard.

The only winners for this project are the people who will get money to pursue their hobby.

To sum this up; Stop the madness!
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I like how you talk about about casual play and people being assholes and then apply that to this game.

It's obvious you know nothing about the project or have even read much about it.

The "Founding principals" talks a lot about this kind of stuff and even about how he wants it to be more like old school mmorpgs, not like your casual "gimmie gimmie" mmo's.

He doesn't even want an AH (which ruins the social interaction between crafters/players).

A lot of what he talks about is going back to some older elements of mmo's that newer ones have lost.

If you care you can read them, and get a better understanding of the goals for the game:
http://camelotunchained.com/en/category/foundationalprinciple/?orderby=date&order=asc

Wildace said:
sounds nice, sorta want to spend the 180 on the internal testing phase since i have almost endless free time but i doubt ill have the extra 80 i need before they all get snagged up. 204 out of 500 left
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Just be aware that Internal testing will be very early (alpha really, but like what alpha used to mean) testing, lot of unfished things, could simply be you and another guy standing in an untextured area whacking away at each other with weapons to test them out. Plus the IT rewards (unless it says "requirments waived) will require you to actually play them and test and have time requirements (has said they'll work with people though, as they undrestand people are in different time zones/have jobs and things can happen), however not testing it often and on some times can lead to you getting your access revoked. Because they want people that will really help them and not treat it as how most "beta's" are these days as a demo or something.
 
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Although marketing is a huge expense, creating the art assets and coding a game of today's expected complexity/quality just costs more than it used to.
 
Stiler said:
Just be aware that Internal testing will be very early (alpha really, but like what alpha used to mean) testing, lot of unfished things, could simply be you and another guy standing in an untextured area whacking away at each other with weapons to test them out. Plus the IT rewards (unless it says "requirments waived) will require you to actually play them and test and have time requirements (has said they'll work with people though, as they undrestand people are in different time zones/have jobs and things can happen), however not testing it often and on some times can lead to you getting your access revoked. Because they want people that will really help them and not treat it as how most "beta's" are these days as a demo or something.
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I'm well aware of what it means :) like i said i have an almost endless amount of free time to deal with that, report and help make it a better experience, just lack the funds to get it atm haha.

I pretty much do nothing but sit here and play games or take care of my neices when my sister needs me too which is less often than one would think. So i bascially have no income, no bills, no college classes or anything to really get in the way of grinding out mindless sessions of standing there in a cold dark game world with nothing but bugs to keep me company.
 
I just pledged 55.00 I hope it doesn't loose steam......... I would of pledged for Shroud of the Avatar but the goal was met =) I figure if I can see some gameplay at least if it was close to making it's goal I would of pledged just to see it.


2 million dollars is alot of money though =)
 
Comixbooks said:
I just pledged 55.00 I hope it doesn't loose steam......... I would of pledged for Shroud of the Avatar but the goal was met =) I figure if I can see some gameplay at least if it was close to making it's goal I would of pledged just to see it.


2 million dollars is alot of money though =)
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i bet it will make it, alot of time left and over 1/4th the way. atleast im hopeful it will.
 
TwistedAegis said:
Although marketing is a huge expense, creating the art assets and coding a game of today's expected complexity/quality just costs more than it used to.
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Sure, if you're going for OMGCRYSISKILLAH graphics, it can be more expensive (and tends to be for acceptable fidelity these days to an extent). However, the fundamentals haven't really changed in... well, a long time. Add in that they need exponentially fewer assets produced since they won't be having the standard PVE game bolted on, and it's not a concern. If anything, coding/art creation has gotten cheaper for any given quality level, overall, and by focusing their coders where it counts (rendering & server back-end) while using customized middleware for some of the other things (client-side networking, audio, etc.) as they discussed, it's wholly possible.
 
Wildace said:
i bet it will make it, alot of time left and over 1/4th the way. atleast im hopeful it will.
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I sure hope so! The only other MMO that interests me for RVR-type gameplay is TESO and I'm not so optimistic about that one. Wildstar looks fun for PVE. Even if TESO is good, unless it really has staying power I'll probably be looking for a new MMO by the time Camelot Unchained comes out (slated tentatively at December 2015, and I wouldn't be surprised if it slips some whatsoever) anyway. I'm frankly tired of playing games that only last a short time due to excessive PVE focus and catering to instant gratification.

Stiler said:
There WILL be npc's, no PVE loot drops doesn't mean no npc's.

Mark has mentioned having "dragons" and other types of creatures in the game.

Also with the world, it'd seem a bit barren to have no animals or anything out in it.
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Yep, they also may do something like Darkness Falls or Labyrinth I'm guessing, if they hit enough funding as a stretch goal. However, even if they did that feature, it would still bear little resemblance to what most gamers think of when they think "MMO PVE" since it'd just be a very complex maze in the RVR frontier (i.e. completely pvp enabled) (including multiple levels if it's like Laby) with some (extremely basic) bosses at the ends or intersections in some of them that drop nice stuff (assuming it were like what DAOC did). Still, just because there's an NPC to kill doesn't make it PVE ;). Most of the action in those zones was focused around not getting wiped out by the other faction's players :D.
 
Stiler said:
what he throws in and then other investors coming on board (after seeing it raise 2million on it's own without any investors) can be enough.

[...]

Yes mmo's do take a bigger risk (ongoing costs) but also remember, this game is not free to play, it WILL have a subscription (with higher reward tiers getting extra months play time, and some getting "lifetime" subs (well $1 year subs, per kickstarter rules).

I like how you talk about about casual play and people being assholes and then apply that to this game.

It's obvious you know nothing about the project or have even read much about it.

The "Founding principals" talks a lot about this kind of stuff and even about how he wants it to be more like old school mmorpgs, not like your casual "gimmie gimmie" mmo's.
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It's true that I don't know much about this project, however I do know about reality.

In reality investors want a hefty return on their investment. Investors don't care about "founding principals", they care about cashflow and profit.

In reality niche products are simply not profitable, or not profitable enough to be attractive to investors. Plainly put, why *risk* your money on some fringe MMO which will never ever have a broad appeal and rake in mad cash if you can just as well fund something that will.

In reality the "founding principals" have been summarily rejected by the customers. It doesn't matter whether enough people will kick in some cash to reach the funding goal because those same people will never ever convert to subscribers.

McQuaid had the same vision when he made Vanguard, and it fizzled, going down to 2 servers shortly after launch (from more than a dozen at launch) and eventually going F2P. Now, Vanguard is a bit different from this project, but the point is that people *think* they want a game like this because they the notion that they will enjoy it. However, when they actually get the game they realize that while they have fond memories of games that used to be like that they will simply not put up with this type of game mechanic anymore.
 
Thuleman said:
However, when they actually get the game they realize that while they have fond memories of games that used to be like that they will simply not put up with this type of game mechanic anymore.
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You're making some broad generalizations there. I agree, some people may think they will like the game and then come to realize they don't. However I believe those people will be in the minority, especially of those who are early funders. The folks who are funding at this point have tried many other MMOs and know exactly what they want, and will have access to early test builds to provide feedback and help shape the game.

If you're not interested in funding at this point, that's fine. But let's wait until we see some test builds before we start comparing to other failed games (like Vanguard). Vanguard was 'grindy' like early EQ1 and DAoC, which is the type of games people started to gravitate away from. Camelot Unchained will not have any PvE grind so it's not really fair to make that comparison.

I think Mark has a good grasp on what his fans want or don't want, and the game should have a healthy mix of nostalgic elements and new mechanics that will make it fun and enjoyable.
 
Thuleman said:
It's true that I don't know much about this project, however I do know about reality.

In reality investors want a hefty return on their investment. Investors don't care about "founding principals", they care about cashflow and profit.

In reality niche products are simply not profitable, or not profitable enough to be attractive to investors. Plainly put, why *risk* your money on some fringe MMO which will never ever have a broad appeal and rake in mad cash if you can just as well fund something that will.

In reality the "founding principals" have been summarily rejected by the customers. It doesn't matter whether enough people will kick in some cash to reach the funding goal because those same people will never ever convert to subscribers.

McQuaid had the same vision when he made Vanguard, and it fizzled, going down to 2 servers shortly after launch (from more than a dozen at launch) and eventually going F2P. Now, Vanguard is a bit different from this project, but the point is that people *think* they want a game like this because they the notion that they will enjoy it. However, when they actually get the game they realize that while they have fond memories of games that used to be like that they will simply not put up with this type of game mechanic anymore.
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In reality, every project is different and the design + buzz is king as to whether it succeeds. Comparing it to Vanguard of all things is hilarious at this stage.

By the way, update #5 is live: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained/posts They have an incredibly clever, and definitely ambitious, plan for their UI setup. The project is at ~$765,200 and climbing!
 
Wildace said:
pretty sure you can donate as much as you want. just type in how much you want to donate.
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I know :). He was implying there was some magical mythical $100k tier listed that gave random stupidity, so I was just reminding him that he's in fantasy-land. The highest tier for rewards listed is $10,000.
 
I like how the secret phrase you get to say for the 10k pledged is AOT DEKCUS which would be TOA Sucked, because Trials of Atlantis did suck.
 
Climber said:
I like how the secret phrase you get to say for the 10k pledged is AOT DEKCUS which would be TOA Sucked, because Trials of Atlantis did suck.
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I actually liked TOA, but it needed to launch like it was a year and a half, two years later after patching. As it launched it was too heavy into PVE and situational XP gains for your items, and had a lot of pretty punishing design mechanics. It arguably was the wrong game for that kind of expansion, too :eek: . Still had a blast with DAOC all the way through 2008ish when I switched over to WAR (through when the launch of the 1.4 revamp patch was being planned/tested/designed). Since then I've been struggling to find a game to last me very long, TSW came closest at around 5 months of solid heavy gameplay but the game lacked in many ways and the transition to buy-to-play after I shelled out $200+40 (lifetime + game cost) burnt me.

All that said... AOT DEKCUS is hilarious and I'd say in hindsight probably fitting :( in most people's eyes.
 
SilverSliver said:
Warhammer Online was not.
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Well the problem with warhammer was that the server handled literally every thing but rendering. Where as this makes it much harder to cheat in a game it also makes latency a far more obvious issue.
 
Warhammer Online was terrible. So much so that I lost all faith in Mark Jacobs.

I loved DAoC. Looking into the details of Matt Firor's project, Elder Scrolls Online, he's basically making Dark Age of Camelot, but with a massive budget and well known IP.

Guild Wars 2 has done its best to copy DAoC but the RvR just seems hollow without the lore to back up the fighting. One thing DAoC did well was to separate the three teams completely in lore, PvE and geography and anonymise RvR so that when you did come to blows in RvR it felt epic and meaningful. ESO has copied this exactly.
 
Finkus said:
Warhammer Online was terrible. So much so that I lost all faith in Mark Jacobs.

I loved DAoC. Looking into the details of Matt Firor's project, Elder Scrolls Online, he's basically making Dark Age of Camelot, but with a massive budget and well known IP.

Guild Wars 2 has done its best to copy DAoC but the RvR just seems hollow without the lore to back up the fighting. One thing DAoC did well was to separate the three teams completely in lore, PvE and geography and anonymise RvR so that when you did come to blows in RvR it felt epic and meaningful. ESO has copied this exactly.
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Mark had very little control over what happened with WAR once EA was involved.

Guild Wars 2 was just meh for me even if it had lore, the gameplay mechanics are just weird. You have a very limited skill bar, the diving/rolling mechanic was a good 'idea' but just seems silly, the 'finishing move' with people jumping up in the air and with the removal of dedicated healers I just could not get into it.

ESO does look promising and they do have the funds/IP to make a great game. But it's pretty safe to say that those 2 things do not always make a great game (SWtoR, WAR, etc. etc. etc.). They also have a publisher and investors who will demand the maximum number of subs, which means watered down content that is easily accessible to everyone.

I'm not saying that Mark and CSE will release a perfect game, but his philosophies about the genre and how has devolved are right in line with my own thoughts. He has a lot of great ideas, I just hope he gets what he needs to make them come to fruition. I also love Arthurian/Camelot lore and I think this new twist on that will have some great stories.
 
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