Camelot Unchained - Hurry Up & Wait - MMORPG.com

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Camelot Unchained - Hurry Up & Wait - MMORPG.com

This week Timothy Eisen talks beta pains, launch pressures and makes a few Camelot Unchained predictions for 2017.

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CrazKanuk

Also, it should be noted that during the Kickstarter Campaign, they had nearly zero gameplay to show at all. They JUST had some early engine footage near the end whic hincluded, non-textured, mapped-path models, just to prove a concept. I'd say that CU is one of the earlier games funded in recent years. I think people generally expect more now, as far as work already being done.

Volgore

I predict that this game will drop off of many people's radar because it seems to be another one of these titles that take literally forever to get released and will still be unfinished on that day.

It's another case of a studio heavily building on nostalgia, like people will join this game in droves because "back in the days, when PvP was king...you know.."

Somebody tell Mark Jacobs that time moved on and so did the mindset of the majority of players. And time is still moving on...obviously way faster then the development of this game.

aslan132

Yup, this one, like all kickstarter games gets hyped way too early. I understand they have to, or people wont back them, but in the end people forget about the games before they ever make it to launch.

A year ago I was excited.
6 months ago I was looking forward to it.
3 months ago I began to grow indifferent.
Now I just dont care anymore.

Kyleran

I backed CU, and continue to wait patiently for it.

Fortunately I've grown past getting excited or hyped over new MMOs, all have fallen short for a very long time now.

Meanwhile, there's always EVE.

Vynt

I always figured the game would be out around 2018. I've jumped in a couple times early on to see how the game was progressing, but I tend not to do too much early in the cycle, or even beta, so as not to ruin the experience. 

Anidein

My patience is staining, but I definitely believe this game is worth waiting for.

The game that has already been shown to us makes me think Beta is just a stone throw away.

For what its worth, Crowfall is in a playable state and doesn't look half as good.

CrazKanuk

TimEisen said:

CrazKanuk said:

Also, it should be noted that during the Kickstarter Campaign, they had nearly zero gameplay to show at all. They JUST had some early engine footage near the end whic hincluded, non-textured, mapped-path models, just to prove a concept. I'd say that CU is one of the earlier games funded in recent years. I think people generally expect more now, as far as work already being done.

Watching KS games evolve is interesting. CU had words on paper. Crowfall has a rough demo. Elyria had several demos. Dual Universe looked like it had pre-Alpha underway. While the market flooded and the skepticism of consumers grew the dev's started to ask for less and offer more. 

Totally!! CU might be the last (certainly one of the last) game(s) to run a successful 6-digit KS campaign with nothing more than paperwork and dreams. Shit! Even John Romero can't solve the KS problem. TWICE!!! Not even with Brenda freakin' Brathwaite! This is what confounds me more than anything, now, is when people claim that you don't need anything succeed in securing a hundred grand, or a million bucks. The game has CHANGED!!! 

Kyleran

CrazKanuk said:

TimEisen said:

CrazKanuk said:

Also, it should be noted that during the Kickstarter Campaign, they had nearly zero gameplay to show at all. They JUST had some early engine footage near the end whic hincluded, non-textured, mapped-path models, just to prove a concept. I'd say that CU is one of the earlier games funded in recent years. I think people generally expect more now, as far as work already being done.

Watching KS games evolve is interesting. CU had words on paper. Crowfall has a rough demo. Elyria had several demos. Dual Universe looked like it had pre-Alpha underway. While the market flooded and the skepticism of consumers grew the dev's started to ask for less and offer more. 

Totally!! CU might be the last (certainly one of the last) game(s) to run a successful 6-digit KS campaign with nothing more than paperwork and dreams. Shit! Even John Romero can't solve the KS problem. TWICE!!! Not even with Brenda freakin' Brathwaite! This is what confounds me more than anything, now, is when people claim that you don't need anything succeed in securing a hundred grand, or a million bucks. The game has CHANGED!!! 

Since they were one of the first its not surprising they raised so much, market is suffering from KS burn out right now.

Need to see some deliveries to justify the faith put into them.

tweedledumb99

Volgore said:

I predict that this game will drop off of many people's radar because it seems to be another one of these titles that take literally forever to get released and will still be unfinished on that day.



It's another case of a studio heavily building on nostalgia, like people will join this game in droves because "back in the days, when PvP was king...you know.."



Somebody tell Mark Jacobs that time moved on and so did the mindset of the majority of players. And time is still moving on...obviously way faster then the development of this game.

I think the game might drop off people's radar, and that when beta rolls around people will play a bit and step away.

I think of it like ordering a pizza (kind of):

there's the toppings (game features)

there's all the pre-baking preparation (the development of the engine and the core game and features)

there's baking the thing (testing and refining of the systems built during development, i.e. later beta stages)

there's delivering the pizza (final 'open beta'/trials, marketing/hype and launch and distribution of the released game)

With many other games, I've seen devs promise lots of fancy toppings (truffles! gold leaf! kobe beef! caviar!), then rush the pre-baking and baking, deliver the pizza quickly and we find out the truffles are just white mushrooms, the gold leaf is lead, the kobe beef is spam, and the caviar is anchovies.

With CU, we've been promised a different set of fancy toppings, and have seen CSE slowly, methodically find those toppings and add them to the raw dough. The pre-baking stage is lasting longer, but we actually can see that the toppings they promised are (slowly but surely) getting put on the pizza.

So instead of having a pizza delivered in 20 minutes (wow, that was fast!) that tastes okay, I'm waiting 2 hours for a pizza that's looking like it's actually got a chance of tasting as good as promised.

I think when the game releases, if it delivers what CSE has promised, *then* people who want a realm-based more-than-two-sided PvP game will come to the game. Regardless of what they thought/did during development. Why wouldn't you? How reasonable does "I would come play this game cause it's the kind of game I like, but I refuse to because it took longer than they said to develop it" sound? Doesn't sound reasonable to me, or likely to happen.

CrazKanuk

TimEisen said:

CrazKanuk said:

TimEisen said:

CrazKanuk said:

Also, it should be noted that during the Kickstarter Campaign, they had nearly zero gameplay to show at all. They JUST had some early engine footage near the end whic hincluded, non-textured, mapped-path models, just to prove a concept. I'd say that CU is one of the earlier games funded in recent years. I think people generally expect more now, as far as work already being done.

Watching KS games evolve is interesting. CU had words on paper. Crowfall has a rough demo. Elyria had several demos. Dual Universe looked like it had pre-Alpha underway. While the market flooded and the skepticism of consumers grew the dev's started to ask for less and offer more. 

Totally!! CU might be the last (certainly one of the last) game(s) to run a successful 6-digit KS campaign with nothing more than paperwork and dreams. Shit! Even John Romero can't solve the KS problem. TWICE!!! Not even with Brenda freakin' Brathwaite! This is what confounds me more than anything, now, is when people claim that you don't need anything succeed in securing a hundred grand, or a million bucks. The game has CHANGED!!! 

Now we see things like Indiegogo offering stock in the company! Crazy times!

Which I am actually a huge fan of. I'll probably never actually invest any money, but people have been complaining about it forever. It's that sense of entitlement that they are somehow doing this amazing thing for the company and they should be rewarded. So now they can. It'll cost them more, but I guess it's time to pony up and put your money where your mouth is I'm not hostile about that at all!!!

waynejr2

tweedledumb99 said:

Volgore said:

I predict that this game will drop off of many people's radar because it seems to be another one of these titles that take literally forever to get released and will still be unfinished on that day.



It's another case of a studio heavily building on nostalgia, like people will join this game in droves because "back in the days, when PvP was king...you know.."



Somebody tell Mark Jacobs that time moved on and so did the mindset of the majority of players. And time is still moving on...obviously way faster then the development of this game.

I think the game might drop off people's radar, and that when beta rolls around people will play a bit and step away.

I think of it like ordering a pizza (kind of):

there's the toppings (game features)

there's all the pre-baking preparation (the development of the engine and the core game and features)

there's baking the thing (testing and refining of the systems built during development, i.e. later beta stages)

there's delivering the pizza (final 'open beta'/trials, marketing/hype and launch and distribution of the released game)

With many other games, I've seen devs promise lots of fancy toppings (truffles! gold leaf! kobe beef! caviar!), then rush the pre-baking and baking, deliver the pizza quickly and we find out the truffles are just white mushrooms, the gold leaf is lead, the kobe beef is spam, and the caviar is anchovies.

With CU, we've been promised a different set of fancy toppings, and have seen CSE slowly, methodically find those toppings and add them to the raw dough. The pre-baking stage is lasting longer, but we actually can see that the toppings they promised are (slowly but surely) getting put on the pizza.

So instead of having a pizza delivered in 20 minutes (wow, that was fast!) that tastes okay, I'm waiting 2 hours for a pizza that's looking like it's actually got a chance of tasting as good as promised.

I think when the game releases, if it delivers what CSE has promised, *then* people who want a realm-based more-than-two-sided PvP game will come to the game. Regardless of what they thought/did during development. Why wouldn't you? How reasonable does "I would come play this game cause it's the kind of game I like, but I refuse to because it took longer than they said to develop it" sound? Doesn't sound reasonable to me, or likely to happen.

There is a saying:  "There is no such thing as bad pizza".

You can't say that about mmoRPGs.

Volgore

tweedledumb99 said:

Volgore said:

I predict that this game will drop off of many people's radar because it seems to be another one of these titles that take literally forever to get released and will still be unfinished on that day.



It's another case of a studio heavily building on nostalgia, like people will join this game in droves because "back in the days, when PvP was king...you know.."



Somebody tell Mark Jacobs that time moved on and so did the mindset of the majority of players. And time is still moving on...obviously way faster then the development of this game.

I think the game might drop off people's radar, and that when beta rolls around people will play a bit and step away.

I think of it like ordering a pizza (kind of):

there's the toppings (game features)

there's all the pre-baking preparation (the development of the engine and the core game and features)

there's baking the thing (testing and refining of the systems built during development, i.e. later beta stages)

there's delivering the pizza (final 'open beta'/trials, marketing/hype and launch and distribution of the released game)

With many other games, I've seen devs promise lots of fancy toppings (truffles! gold leaf! kobe beef! caviar!), then rush the pre-baking and baking, deliver the pizza quickly and we find out the truffles are just white mushrooms, the gold leaf is lead, the kobe beef is spam, and the caviar is anchovies.

With CU, we've been promised a different set of fancy toppings, and have seen CSE slowly, methodically find those toppings and add them to the raw dough. The pre-baking stage is lasting longer, but we actually can see that the toppings they promised are (slowly but surely) getting put on the pizza.

So instead of having a pizza delivered in 20 minutes (wow, that was fast!) that tastes okay, I'm waiting 2 hours for a pizza that's looking like it's actually got a chance of tasting as good as promised.

I think when the game releases, if it delivers what CSE has promised, *then* people who want a realm-based more-than-two-sided PvP game will come to the game. Regardless of what they thought/did during development. Why wouldn't you? How reasonable does "I would come play this game cause it's the kind of game I like, but I refuse to because it took longer than they said to develop it" sound? Doesn't sound reasonable to me, or likely to happen.

Now i really want pizza...

tweedledumb99

waynejr2 said:

tweedledumb99 said:

Volgore said:

I predict that this game will drop off of many people's radar because it seems to be another one of these titles that take literally forever to get released and will still be unfinished on that day.





It's another case of a studio heavily building on nostalgia, like people will join this game in droves because "back in the days, when PvP was king...you know.."





Somebody tell Mark Jacobs that time moved on and so did the mindset of the majority of players. And time is still moving on...obviously way faster then the development of this game.

I think the game might drop off people's radar, and that when beta rolls around people will play a bit and step away.



I think of it like ordering a pizza (kind of):



there's the toppings (game features)



there's all the pre-baking preparation (the development of the engine and the core game and features)



there's baking the thing (testing and refining of the systems built during development, i.e. later beta stages)



there's delivering the pizza (final 'open beta'/trials, marketing/hype and launch and distribution of the released game)



With many other games, I've seen devs promise lots of fancy toppings (truffles! gold leaf! kobe beef! caviar!), then rush the pre-baking and baking, deliver the pizza quickly and we find out the truffles are just white mushrooms, the gold leaf is lead, the kobe beef is spam, and the caviar is anchovies.



With CU, we've been promised a different set of fancy toppings, and have seen CSE slowly, methodically find those toppings and add them to the raw dough. The pre-baking stage is lasting longer, but we actually can see that the toppings they promised are (slowly but surely) getting put on the pizza.



So instead of having a pizza delivered in 20 minutes (wow, that was fast!) that tastes okay, I'm waiting 2 hours for a pizza that's looking like it's actually got a chance of tasting as good as promised.



I think when the game releases, if it delivers what CSE has promised, *then* people who want a realm-based more-than-two-sided PvP game will come to the game. Regardless of what they thought/did during development. Why wouldn't you? How reasonable does "I would come play this game cause it's the kind of game I like, but I refuse to because it took longer than they said to develop it" sound? Doesn't sound reasonable to me, or likely to happen.

There is a saying:  "There is no such thing as bad pizza".

You can't say that about mmoRPGs.

Hehe, indeed

tweedledumb99

waynejr2 said:

tweedledumb99 said:

Volgore said:

I predict that this game will drop off of many people's radar because it seems to be another one of these titles that take literally forever to get released and will still be unfinished on that day.





It's another case of a studio heavily building on nostalgia, like people will join this game in droves because "back in the days, when PvP was king...you know.."





Somebody tell Mark Jacobs that time moved on and so did the mindset of the majority of players. And time is still moving on...obviously way faster then the development of this game.

I think the game might drop off people's radar, and that when beta rolls around people will play a bit and step away.



I think of it like ordering a pizza (kind of):



there's the toppings (game features)



there's all the pre-baking preparation (the development of the engine and the core game and features)



there's baking the thing (testing and refining of the systems built during development, i.e. later beta stages)



there's delivering the pizza (final 'open beta'/trials, marketing/hype and launch and distribution of the released game)



With many other games, I've seen devs promise lots of fancy toppings (truffles! gold leaf! kobe beef! caviar!), then rush the pre-baking and baking, deliver the pizza quickly and we find out the truffles are just white mushrooms, the gold leaf is lead, the kobe beef is spam, and the caviar is anchovies.



With CU, we've been promised a different set of fancy toppings, and have seen CSE slowly, methodically find those toppings and add them to the raw dough. The pre-baking stage is lasting longer, but we actually can see that the toppings they promised are (slowly but surely) getting put on the pizza.



So instead of having a pizza delivered in 20 minutes (wow, that was fast!) that tastes okay, I'm waiting 2 hours for a pizza that's looking like it's actually got a chance of tasting as good as promised.



I think when the game releases, if it delivers what CSE has promised, *then* people who want a realm-based more-than-two-sided PvP game will come to the game. Regardless of what they thought/did during development. Why wouldn't you? How reasonable does "I would come play this game cause it's the kind of game I like, but I refuse to because it took longer than they said to develop it" sound? Doesn't sound reasonable to me, or likely to happen.

There is a saying:  "There is no such thing as bad pizza".

You can't say that about mmoRPGs.

The last PvP I've enjoyed in an MMO was in Dark Age of Camelot. I've played WoW, GW2, ESO, LOTRO since then. When it comes to large-scale persistent PvP MMO's, It's starting to seem like there's no such thing as good pizza

Ginfrecss

I backed this game. Now I just don't care about it anymore..even though I invested a huge sum. It's way past due. It will have some appeal when it comes back, but I won't be one of them.

jbladder

TimEisen said:

CrazKanuk said:

Also, it should be noted that during the Kickstarter Campaign, they had nearly zero gameplay to show at all. They JUST had some early engine footage near the end whic hincluded, non-textured, mapped-path models, just to prove a concept. I'd say that CU is one of the earlier games funded in recent years. I think people generally expect more now, as far as work already being done.

Watching KS games evolve is interesting. CU had words on paper. Crowfall has a rough demo. Elyria had several demos. Dual Universe looked like it had pre-Alpha underway. While the market flooded and the skepticism of consumers grew the dev's started to ask for less and offer more. 

So does this mean the market is cycling back around to the actual groups and companies that want to deliver something to market funding their own R&D completely and then turning out finished product?

Rubrubgrr

I see a few folks saying they, and claim others, have moved on to other games O.o moved on to what i ask? Because the bulk games on the market suck ballz or the Publishers sold there community's out through the cash shop and greed. (That's right I'm still looking at you Trion & Kakao) :P So what is it going to cost me to have some more patience and wait and see if Mark and his crew deliver? That's right not a bloody thing lol

TalulaRose

The people that have paid to test, are basically playing the game and when it goes live they will have a huge advantage over those that didn't.

For games that have pvp as their basis it usually means the large professional guilds will dominate from day 1 as they will already have planned how to get ahead of everyone and stay ahead.

Shadanwolf

It has been far too easy for me to post negative comments. I have great hopes for this game. I'm just completely worn out waiting for beta and launch

tinuelle

Shadanwolf said:

It has been far too easy for me to post negative comments. I have great hopes for this game. I'm just completely worn out waiting for beta and launch

Relax and play some pokemon GO while you wait!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

The few! The proud! The dorfs!

Theocritus

Ginfrecss said:

I backed this game. Now I just don't care about it anymore..even though I invested a huge sum. It's way past due. It will have some appeal when it comes back, but I won't be one of them.

Unfortunately alot of people are learning hard lessons about KS games.

CrazKanuk

Theocritus said:

Ginfrecss said:

I backed this game. Now I just don't care about it anymore..even though I invested a huge sum. It's way past due. It will have some appeal when it comes back, but I won't be one of them.

Unfortunately alot of people are learning hard lessons about KS games.

Are they? Ok, I'll toss one on the pile of completely vague, unsupported, blanket statements that can't be wrong, and say a lot of people are enjoying KS games thoroughly. 

mainsn2000

if the game is good players will come to play. I waited this long what is another few months or a year.

ConstantineMerus

People condemn publishers for pushing developers to meet deadlines and shove an unfinished broken product to the shelves meanwhile they also get frustrated with independent developers whom won't release their game until they are satisfied with it, whom won't set it as beta unless it is truly in a beta stage. 

If it was anyone else but Mark Jacobs this title was on Steam's EA for years now and we were nagging about the new paid DLC instead of this. 

It is understandable a new concept like crowdfunding is still not grasped by most. Also understandable that most people have no idea what it takes to create a massively multiplayer role playing game (takes a while even to read that, doesn't it?) It is also true that many developers will take advantage of this. But if you had made a pledge, you got yourself into a long waiting game.

Instead of ordering the big mac, you've sent your wife to a French cooking class. Now she might cheat you on the way and leave you for good, she might never learn and cooks you something awful in the end, but at least know what you had signed-up for in the first place. 

I'm not sure what hard lessons people are talking about here. Avg. pledge is ~$100 for most titles. If someone had invested $100 and now has learned a hard lesson because he can't play the game yet and that $100 has set them back financially the lesson here is totally irrelevant to crowdfunding. 

donger56

I was interested in this game awhile back, but haven't followed it lately. I refuse to put any money into these games until they have a pretty firm release date or they are in something that resembles a retail version. The lines of where testing ends and retail begins keep getting more blurry with these games.

They made a tough decision to develop their own engine for this game. That is pretty ambitious for an indie project. Time will tell if that was the right call or not, but this has clearly fallen into the realm of ongoing development hell. They initially said beta would start early 2016. Now it is nearly 2017 and not even a date for beta to begin. This might turn out to be a decent niche game, but its certainly nothing I'm putting money into until post release.