Camelot Unchained - Mark Jacobs & the Philosophy of CU - MMORPG.com

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Camelot Unchained - Mark Jacobs & the Philosophy of CU - MMORPG.com

Our friends at MMOZG.net recently conducted a lengthy interview with Mark Jacobs to discuss some of the design philosophy and fundamental principles behind Camelot Unchained. They have graciously translated it for us to print here.

Read the full story here

Slapshot1188

I'm gonna guess that the interviewer does not speak English as his native tongue. Some of that was painful.

kitarad

That fireball steam cloud strategy though situational seemed more tactical and does bode well for people more interested in tactical battles. The three faction thing was always a good idea too from DAoC days.

Large battles with their test involving over a thousand bots interesting to see they are using Amazon servers . I love reading about the games he played and loved as it gives some insight into what MJ enjoys personally.

Alomar

City State/MJ's transparency and financial philosophy are what keep me as a dedicated fan and future player, even through the delays. Instead of nickel and diming their fans by selling pictures of pixels they still offer refunds. Their weekly updates and streams are sometimes too transparent as it may add up to be significant time away from development, yet it's a noble change from the norm.

Regarding 3-faction pvp, as a hardcore mmo pvper whose played 39 mmo's, it's simply the most competitive and fun type of open world pvp to exist to date. Meanwhile, Kotor is my favorite rpg so MJ went from 10/10 in my book to 11/10 now.

Elderknight

Going to play the hell out of this game, just wish i could play today

mazut

3 faction is good at start but become more and more unbalanced in time, especially if the sides are fixed.

UOlover

Slapshot1188 said:

I'm gonna guess that the interviewer does not speak English as his native tongue. Some of that was painful.

It bordered on not worth either side's time

Alomar

DMKano said:

Alomar said:

City State/MJ's transparency and financial philosophy are what keep me as a dedicated fan and future player, even through the delays. Instead of nickel and diming their fans by selling pictures of pixels they still offer refunds. Their weekly updates and streams are sometimes too transparent as it may add up to be significant time away from development, yet it's a noble change from the norm.





Regarding 3-faction pvp, as a hardcore mmo pvper whose played 39 mmo's, it's simply the most competitive and fun type of open world pvp to exist to date. Meanwhile, Kotor is my favorite rpg so MJ went from 10/10 in my book to 11/10 now.

But will it be fun?



If the game is not fun.... none of these things will mean diddly squat to anyone.



Mark and the crew must deliver a base game experience that is both compelling and fun to play first and foremost, then all the effort will be worth it.





Also not to burst your bubble but many game companies do weekly streams, so this is not all that uncommon.

No worries, I always love your derogatory responses since you seem to never have anything better to do.

Yes, 3 faction pvp is the most consistent form of pvp that over time evolves, changes, and surprises me rather than 2 sided pvp that becomes stale and predictable over time. "Fun" is a matter of opinion, what you find fun I might not. Therefore, it may mean diddly squat to you and not to me.

Of course they must deliver a base game experience to build upon, as well as every developer who ever created a game in the history of game development.

Consider the bubble not bursted, as City State goes above and beyond "weekly streams" they do 4-7 a week at times. Meanwhile, they're not a "game company" to be comparing to everyone around, the train of topic in my response was focused on development of indie titles by crowdfunded means. I know you like your post count, but there isn't always a need to respond to every little thing. Re-reading something and thinking can yield the same result as asking short nonsensical questions.

gervaise1

"Mark: I’ve always believed in the viability of three Realms/factions in a PvP game."

Agree. As "we" know however population imbalance can remain a problem - and in DAoC of course this resulted in "bonuses" for "underpopulated" realms of course - with "debateable" success.

My own view then was that an approach based on individuals was a better way to go and - as CU is not going to be using megaserver tech I feel that this idea may also apply today.

So what do I mean by an approach based on "individuals"?

The idea is grounded in the concept of "cosmic balance" or harmony - an idea that can be found in various fantasy works e.g. Katherine Kerr were a character's spirit might be "reborn" to do deeds for one faction to balance out deeds carried out in another life for a different faction.

From a mechanistic point of view. Three races A, B, C.

A player plays a race A character then as their tally of victories, kills grows they accumulate "karma A". Up to a certain point however this has no impact - they are simply famous. However at some point fame tips over into infamy and their karma then acts as a penalty to future kills (on dps, ac - whatever). May or may not be capped.

If the player plays race B and race C they also accumulate karma B and karma C.

What would then happen is that if the player is playing race A and they attack race B then their karma A would be compared to their karma B. Maybe as simple as A-B. Depending on the calculation they may or may not get a penalty. (Bonuses could also be generated as well depending on implementaion and the idea of a karma score being "OK" up to a point would be to reduce game calculations.

The idea however would be to "nudge" people into playing all three factions. People who only play one faction will end up with a penalty - something a lot of players don't like doing so, the concept goes, they will play one of the other factions.

No guarantee that this would maintain some semblance of realm balance but it could and it would also be self-adjusting; no weekly reviews etc.

Ozmodan

mazut said:

3 faction is good at start but become more and more unbalanced in time, especially if the sides are fixed.

Actually, unless one side is decidedly weaker than the others, it generally balances out.  DAoC was quite balanced until they gave a long quest line overpowering powers.  That had nothing to do with factions, just who had time to play all day for weeks on end.

mazut

Ozmodan said:

mazut said:

3 faction is good at start but become more and more unbalanced in time, especially if the sides are fixed.

Actually, unless one side is decidedly weaker than the others, it generally balances out.  DAoC was quite balanced until they gave a long quest line overpowering powers.  That had nothing to do with factions, just who had time to play all day for weeks on end.

All the similar 3 side games i have played ended very unbalanced for 1 side. And that happened sooner rather then later. No exceptions.

Theocritus

3 faction sounds great on paper but doesnt ever seem to work out right

Alders

mazut said:

Ozmodan said:

mazut said:

3 faction is good at start but become more and more unbalanced in time, especially if the sides are fixed.

Actually, unless one side is decidedly weaker than the others, it generally balances out.  DAoC was quite balanced until they gave a long quest line overpowering powers.  That had nothing to do with factions, just who had time to play all day for weeks on end.

All the similar 3 side games i have played ended very unbalanced for 1 side. And that happened sooner rather then later. No exceptions.

Players want to win. They don't actually want balance or competition no matter how much they say they do. One side always becomes stacked. I'm not sure how this can be solved.

Jakobmiller

Not time to add navals... Even Darkfall had navals ready for release.

I'll keep an eye open. But damn. These MMOs releasing are just so barebone.

koboldfodder

If you actually played DAOC, you can already see the problem area.  Three factions means you have to create three times the content with every update.  That means the ole copy and paste in different regions.  DAOC had this in spades.  Play one region, sure it has some stuff to do, but as soon as you make a different character in a different region...all of a sudden you start seeing the same mobs shrunk down to half size, and the same layout in dungeons.

For a small time developer with not a lot of people working on the project, that is pretty much a hurdle they can never leap over.

Lokero

Alders said:

mazut said:

Ozmodan said:

mazut said:

3 faction is good at start but become more and more unbalanced in time, especially if the sides are fixed.

Actually, unless one side is decidedly weaker than the others, it generally balances out.  DAoC was quite balanced until they gave a long quest line overpowering powers.  That had nothing to do with factions, just who had time to play all day for weeks on end.

All the similar 3 side games i have played ended very unbalanced for 1 side. And that happened sooner rather then later. No exceptions.

Players want to win. They don't actually want balance or competition no matter how much they say they do. One side always becomes stacked. I'm not sure how this can be solved.

Yes, PvP will usually end up with some kind of imbalance between teams. The point being made, though, is that having 3 teams has more of a safety net than just having 2 teams.
It's not a cure-all, certainly, but it is usually considered a marked improvement over the 1 massive juggernaut team stomping the completely abandoned other team.

koboldfodder said:

If you actually played DAOC, you can already see the problem area.  Three factions means you have to create three times the content with every update.  That means the ole copy and paste in different regions.  DAOC had this in spades.  Play one region, sure it has some stuff to do, but as soon as you make a different character in a different region...all of a sudden you start seeing the same mobs shrunk down to half size, and the same layout in dungeons.

For a small time developer with not a lot of people working on the project, that is pretty much a hurdle they can never leap over.

Heh, well, not that this sounds much better, but...
CU is hardly going to have any PvE content whatsoever, so I don't figure this will be a big issue.

This game is almost entirely pure PvP. I know they will have a DAoC-like dungeon somewhere, iirc, but beyond that I'm not sure how much "content" there will actually be.

At any rate, there shouldn't be a huge issue with having to "copy and paste".

Aragoni

Jakobmiller said:

Not time to add navals... Even Darkfall had navals ready for release.



I'll keep an eye open. But damn. These MMOs releasing are just so barebone.

But Darkfall didn't have housing, an advanced crafting system and other things that CU are planned to have.

Tamanous

Regarding 3 faction RvR:

- There is no pve content providing leveling xp therefore there does not need to be "cloned" content across the factions as someone suggested. Each realm has unique races, unique armor/weapons, unique terrain design, different sounds and music and differing mob looks (barely revealed however). The lands change to the faction ownership dynamically. Nearly all content is on land with little to no dungeons other than The Depths which is literally it's own beast (and changes to faction ownership as well in looks and function).

- If one side weakens all the way back to their starting zone then the King of the faction provides boosts in various ways ensuring they are not defeated for long. Minimal info on this at this time.

- The game is designed from the ground up with RvR in mind and has to make ZERO concessions to pve balance. It is a living world with mobs and lands important for RvR as the game is realism within a fantasy world. No other game has put so much emphasis strictly on RvR alone for the entire game world so new balance mechanics can be introduced never seen before that globally affect the game and not a mini-game within a game.

Fleet combat:

- This is NOT in ANY way part of the original scope or vision of the game. It is Mark's (and others) dream and does not make the game "bare bones" in any way.

Game Tech:

- It is very clear the opinions of many here are based on previous experiences in mmos. CU is built from the engine up to do things no other RvR or mmo can do. It is flat out amazing what is being developed here in a technical sense. The very core of how combat will work in based upon this tech and if you have not researched it you cannot comment further ... go read up on the game and understand what is trying to be accomplished. It isn't your standard mmo or RvR game ... when viewed as a whole it is something entirely new.

Nobody yet (not even testers) can judge how "fun" the game is. It simply isn't at the stage where all systems work together at once in a playable state. It will be at that stage of "first reveal" within a very few months as Beta 1 and following versions are pushed. For now, if one does not understand the tech, one does not understand the game.

Wizardry

Well i can't argue the fact that if i don't know or understand the tech behind this ,then i simply don't know LMAO ...naturally.

So read i did.

500 or so battles,i highly doubt it,matter of fact ,impossible without a LOT of give away.

My personal taste or combat is controlled,not messy not spam all over the place and very few combatants to watch over.How can i create any thoughtful constructive combat if i have 500 other players around m?IMPOSSIBLE,so you end up with nothing more than SPAM away your cool combos.

I should make note that i fully approve of the idea of combination combat,that is exactly what i like,but self combos are TOO EASY and too easy to spam,that is why i like player>player combo,it relies on timing and coordination.

To the average pvp gamer the idea sounds fun,create stuff ,destroy stuff and cool combat but that si a shallow view on the game,i dig way deeper when i look for a game.

The last thing i could enjoy is spending time to build something ,then watch someone else destroy it..NO THANKS to wasting my time.Then you need to look at BALANCE and that will ALWAYS be the major problem in a pvp game and w/o balance it is a failed idea.

The games i enjoyed pvp...Quake,Unreal,EVERYONE has the same arsenal of weapons and can move anywhere they want as they choose.The imbalance was fighting for powerups an idea long argued over and something i am not in favor of,i prefer vanilla pure player minds versus player minds.
Point being,i don't care what their selling point is on factions,i want way more anyhow,it comes down to the fact this is simply a pvp game and a linear one at that,your realm versus my realm,like a giant arena but with far less design to accommodate the best aspects of pvp.

BruceYee

Wizardry said:

The games i enjoyed pvp...Quake,Unreal,EVERYONE has the same arsenal of weapons and can move anywhere they want as they choose.The imbalance was fighting for powerups an idea long argued over and something i am not in favor of,i prefer vanilla pure player minds versus player minds.
Point being,i don't care what their selling point is on factions,i want way more anyhow,it comes down to the fact this is simply a pvp game and a linear one at that,your realm versus my realm,like a giant arena but with far less design to accommodate the best aspects of pvp.

W-T-SERIOUS-F?!?! You're using Quake and Unreal as examples to compare to this game?! are you **** kidding me right now?! Everyone has the same weapons/loadout is your idea of a good pvp game?! those can be compared more to Overwatch or Paladins or every other generic shooter clone that doesn't allow a lot of customizing or have any type of progression. Comparing apples and friggin' eggplants.

MarkJacobs

Hey all! Sorry about not posting here sooner, spent most of the day with the Lady J out and about. Also saw the movie Life. The tl;dr on that is that it is probably the best movie about dumb scientists and a hostile alien life form starring Ryan Reynolds that I've seen today. 'Nuf said.

In terms of MMORPG, thanks for the story. Unfortunately this interview should have been completed sooner and it might have been longer, that one is on me. I was more tardy in my responses than I should have been. The writer's skills at English were not an impediment to me at all, I thank him for his efforts.

In terms of what has been said in this thread. I'll start posting now and we'll see how far I get tonight.

MarkJacobs

kitarad said:

That fireball steam cloud strategy though situational seemed more tactical and does bode well for people more interested in tactical battles. The three faction thing was always a good idea too from DAoC days.



Large battles with their test involving over a thousand bots interesting to see they are using Amazon servers . I love reading about the games he played and loved as it gives some insight into what MJ enjoys personally.

Yeah, if we had AWS back in 2006, let alone 2001, we could have found and fixed so many problems before we launched. Cloud services are a game changer for MMORPG developers if used properly. And our Bots, well, even if we had them and not AWS in 2006, things would have been different too. Once we get to the next gen of Bots from us, they will be even more useful.

In terms of insights, I've been pretty consistent over the decades. Love RPGs and RTS, MMO or otherwise, and played some FPS when I was much younger. Never was great at the later, I was really good at RTSes. What do you like?

Alomar said:

City State/MJ's transparency and financial philosophy are what keep me as a dedicated fan and future player, even through the delays. Instead of nickel and diming their fans by selling pictures of pixels they still offer refunds. Their weekly updates and streams are sometimes too transparent as it may add up to be significant time away from development, yet it's a noble change from the norm.



Regarding 3-faction pvp, as a hardcore mmo pvper whose played 39 mmo's, it's simply the most competitive and fun type of open world pvp to exist to date. Meanwhile, Kotor is my favorite rpg so MJ went from 10/10 in my book to 11/10 now.

Thanks! Our streams really don't take too much time because they are all unrehearsed, unscripted, etc. We just get on the stream and talk, draw, blow stuff up, break stuff etc. I think it's important for us to do that, and as I will be saying below, we probably do more streams than any other developer based on our headcount. We're less than 30 people, have no CM, no marketing person, and all of our streams are done by developers.

KOTOR was one of the best RPGs ever in my book, and one of the best SW games, as well as one of the best uses of a license ever. I think it's better than Mass Effect or anything else Bioware ever did and they did some pretty great work when the doctors ran the studio.

Elderknight said:

Going to play the hell out of this game, just wish i could play today

Me too. Right now it's not a game, it's somewhere in-between great tech and early game. That will be changing, a lot, over the next few months.

mazut said:

3 faction is good at start but become more and more unbalanced in time, especially if the sides are fixed.

I'm not sure what you mean by "...if the sides are fixed." Could you please explain?

Slapshot1188 said:

I'm gonna guess that the interviewer does not speak English as his native tongue. Some of that was painful.

His English is so much better than my Russian though!

To be continued...

MarkJacobs

DMKano said:

Alomar said:

City State/MJ's transparency and financial philosophy are what keep me as a dedicated fan and future player, even through the delays. Instead of nickel and diming their fans by selling pictures of pixels they still offer refunds. Their weekly updates and streams are sometimes too transparent as it may add up to be significant time away from development, yet it's a noble change from the norm.





Regarding 3-faction pvp, as a hardcore mmo pvper whose played 39 mmo's, it's simply the most competitive and fun type of open world pvp to exist to date. Meanwhile, Kotor is my favorite rpg so MJ went from 10/10 in my book to 11/10 now.

But will it be fun?



If the game is not fun.... none of these things will mean diddly squat to anyone.



Mark and the crew must deliver a base game experience that is both compelling and fun to play first and foremost, then all the effort will be worth it.





Also not to burst your bubble but many game companies do weekly streams, so this is not all that uncommon.

I couldn't agree more with you on the "If the game is not fun..." and "Mark and the crew..." statements. I've said the same thing myself. All of our streams, community engagement, best wishes, designs, etc. are not as important as delivering the goods.

However, as said below, one of the things we do really well is open the studio and our process to the Backers or anybody else who wants to listen. And for a studio as small as we are (<30) to allow/encourage anybody to stream, is fairly unusual especially when you look at the number of hours we do that. And guess what, we will increase the hours when we get into Beta 1. <br />
Back at Mythic I always encouraged/allowed/pushed other devs in front of the camera. I've never tried to hog the spotlight and I want people to get to know our team and I want our team to get even more face time. I did/do this to help their careers as well since the exposure can only help them going forward. Sometimes it backfires, but, IMO, it's the right thing to do.

Alomar said:

DMKano said:

Alomar said:

City State/MJ's transparency and financial philosophy are what keep me as a dedicated fan and future player, even through the delays. Instead of nickel and diming their fans by selling pictures of pixels they still offer refunds. Their weekly updates and streams are sometimes too transparent as it may add up to be significant time away from development, yet it's a noble change from the norm.







Regarding 3-faction pvp, as a hardcore mmo pvper whose played 39 mmo's, it's simply the most competitive and fun type of open world pvp to exist to date. Meanwhile, Kotor is my favorite rpg so MJ went from 10/10 in my book to 11/10 now.

But will it be fun?





If the game is not fun.... none of these things will mean diddly squat to anyone.





Mark and the crew must deliver a base game experience that is both compelling and fun to play first and foremost, then all the effort will be worth it.








Also not to burst your bubble but many game companies do weekly streams, so this is not all that uncommon.

No worries, I always love your derogatory responses since you seem to never have anything better to do.



Yes, 3 faction pvp is the most consistent form of pvp that over time evolves, changes, and surprises me rather than 2 sided pvp that becomes stale and predictable over time. "Fun" is a matter of opinion, what you find fun I might not. Therefore, it may mean diddly squat to you and not to me.



Of course they must deliver a base game experience to build upon, as well as every developer who ever created a game in the history of game development.



Consider the bubble not bursted, as City State goes above and beyond "weekly streams" they do 4-7 a week at times. Meanwhile, they're not a "game company" to be comparing to everyone around, the train of topic in my response was focused on development of indie titles by crowdfunded means. I know you like your post count, but there isn't always a need to respond to every little thing. Re-reading something and thinking can yield the same result as asking short nonsensical questions.

Thanks for that, appreciated.

MarkJacobs

gervaise1 said:

"Mark: I’ve always believed in the viability of three Realms/factions in a PvP game."



Agree. As "we" know however population imbalance can remain a problem - and in DAoC of course this resulted in "bonuses" for "underpopulated" realms of course - with "debateable" success.



My own view then was that an approach based on individuals was a better way to go and - as CU is not going to be using megaserver tech I feel that this idea may also apply today.



So what do I mean by an approach based on "individuals"?



The idea is grounded in the concept of "cosmic balance" or harmony - an idea that can be found in various fantasy works e.g. Katherine Kerr were a character's spirit might be "reborn" to do deeds for one faction to balance out deeds carried out in another life for a different faction.



From a mechanistic point of view. Three races A, B, C.



A player plays a race A character then as their tally of victories, kills grows they accumulate "karma A". Up to a certain point however this has no impact - they are simply famous. However at some point fame tips over into infamy and their karma then acts as a penalty to future kills (on dps, ac - whatever). May or may not be capped.



If the player plays race B and race C they also accumulate karma B and karma C.



What would then happen is that if the player is playing race A and they attack race B then their karma A would be compared to their karma B. Maybe as simple as A-B. Depending on the calculation they may or may not get a penalty. (Bonuses could also be generated as well depending on implementaion and the idea of a karma score being "OK" up to a point would be to reduce game calculations.



The idea however would be to "nudge" people into playing all three factions. People who only play one faction will end up with a penalty - something a lot of players don't like doing so, the concept goes, they will play one of the other factions.



No guarantee that this would maintain some semblance of realm balance but it could and it would also be self-adjusting; no weekly reviews etc.

It's an interesting idea. I don't love the punishment end of it (lower DPS) but without that part, it is similar to how we are going to handle bounties placed on opposing players by the king of the Realm that the player(s) are wiping the floor with.

Ozmodan said:

mazut said:

3 faction is good at start but become more and more unbalanced in time, especially if the sides are fixed.

Actually, unless one side is decidedly weaker than the others, it generally balances out.  DAoC was quite balanced until they gave a long quest line overpowering powers.  That had nothing to do with factions, just who had time to play all day for weeks on end.

Yeah, we have to be really careful with that, as always. Fortunately, this time we'll have metrics that will really help us find the problems before they become, well, problems.

mazut said:

Ozmodan said:

mazut said:

3 faction is good at start but become more and more unbalanced in time, especially if the sides are fixed.

Actually, unless one side is decidedly weaker than the others, it generally balances out.  DAoC was quite balanced until they gave a long quest line overpowering powers.  That had nothing to do with factions, just who had time to play all day for weeks on end.

All the similar 3 side games i have played ended very unbalanced for 1 side. And that happened sooner rather then later. No exceptions.

We'll have to see how that goes, I hope it doesn't end the way these kind of games have ended in your experience. But as always, time will tell.

Theocritus said:

3 faction sounds great on paper but doesnt ever seem to work out right

I guess it depends on your definition of right. Balanced? Long running? And so on. OTOH, I'm not sure what mechanic works better. If I did, I would have chosen it.

And off we go to the next part...

MarkJacobs

Alders said:

mazut said:

Ozmodan said:

mazut said:

3 faction is good at start but become more and more unbalanced in time, especially if the sides are fixed.

Actually, unless one side is decidedly weaker than the others, it generally balances out.  DAoC was quite balanced until they gave a long quest line overpowering powers.  That had nothing to do with factions, just who had time to play all day for weeks on end.

All the similar 3 side games i have played ended very unbalanced for 1 side. And that happened sooner rather then later. No exceptions.

Players want to win. They don't actually want balance or competition no matter how much they say they do. One side always becomes stacked. I'm not sure how this can be solved.

Agreed. The good news is that we are not going for a huge audience (500K) but rather, a much smaller audience. What I'm hoping is that there are enough players who want to play a 3-faction game that they will support our game.

And, BTW, that was one of the reasons I told EA and anybody else who would listen, during the WAR era, that we weren't going to be a WoW-killer (or even competitive numbers-wise) with them. The vast majority of people are, as you describe. There's nothing wrong with that, just as there is nothing wrong with being a player of single player games vs MMORPGs, just different.

koboldfodder said:

If you actually played DAOC, you can already see the problem area.  Three factions means you have to create three times the content with every update.  That means the ole copy and paste in different regions.  DAOC had this in spades.  Play one region, sure it has some stuff to do, but as soon as you make a different character in a different region...all of a sudden you start seeing the same mobs shrunk down to half size, and the same layout in dungeons.

For a small time developer with not a lot of people working on the project, that is pretty much a hurdle they can never leap over.

Well, the good news is that unlike Dark Age of Camelot, we're not going for PvE, which means a lot less content that we have to create. That's one reason I didn't push Camelot Unchained as a PvE game.

Lokero said:

Alders said:

mazut said:

Ozmodan said:

mazut said:

3 faction is good at start but become more and more unbalanced in time, especially if the sides are fixed.

Actually, unless one side is decidedly weaker than the others, it generally balances out.  DAoC was quite balanced until they gave a long quest line overpowering powers.  That had nothing to do with factions, just who had time to play all day for weeks on end.

All the similar 3 side games i have played ended very unbalanced for 1 side. And that happened sooner rather then later. No exceptions.

Players want to win. They don't actually want balance or competition no matter how much they say they do. One side always becomes stacked. I'm not sure how this can be solved.

Yes, PvP will usually end up with some kind of imbalance between teams. The point being made, though, is that having 3 teams has more of a safety net than just having 2 teams.

It's not a cure-all, certainly, but it is usually considered a marked improvement over the 1 massive juggernaut team stomping the completely abandoned other team.

koboldfodder said:

If you actually played DAOC, you can already see the problem area.  Three factions means you have to create three times the content with every update.  That means the ole copy and paste in different regions.  DAOC had this in spades.  Play one region, sure it has some stuff to do, but as soon as you make a different character in a different region...all of a sudden you start seeing the same mobs shrunk down to half size, and the same layout in dungeons.

For a small time developer with not a lot of people working on the project, that is pretty much a hurdle they can never leap over.

Heh, well, not that this sounds much better, but...

CU is hardly going to have any PvE content whatsoever, so I don't figure this will be a big issue.



This game is almost entirely pure PvP. I know they will have a DAoC-like dungeon somewhere, iirc, but beyond that I'm not sure how much "content" there will actually be.



At any rate, there shouldn't be a huge issue with having to "copy and paste".

The dungeon is called The Depths and it's a pretty cool concept, quite different from Darkness Falls, which was also a cool concept. And yeah, copy and pasting will not be an issue with this game.

And once again into the breach dear friends...

MarkJacobs

Jakobmiller said:

Not time to add navals... Even Darkfall had navals ready for release.



I'll keep an eye open. But damn. These MMOs releasing are just so barebone.

It's a matter of priorities and quality. Could we have naval battles of some kind in, just like Darkfall? Maybe, but DF was 8 years in development between announcement and LIVE. I think our Backers would prefer to wait for naval battles rather than extend out the game's development since we are late enough already.

OTOH, our game's world really is the perfect canvas for a well-thought out system for water and air battles.

Aragoni said:

Jakobmiller said:

Not time to add navals... Even Darkfall had navals ready for release.





I'll keep an eye open. But damn. These MMOs releasing are just so barebone.

But Darkfall didn't have housing, an advanced crafting system and other things that CU are planned to have.

Yep.

DMKano said:

Alomar said:

DMKano said:

Alomar said:

City State/MJ's transparency and financial philosophy are what keep me as a dedicated fan and future player, even through the delays. Instead of nickel and diming their fans by selling pictures of pixels they still offer refunds. Their weekly updates and streams are sometimes too transparent as it may add up to be significant time away from development, yet it's a noble change from the norm.









Regarding 3-faction pvp, as a hardcore mmo pvper whose played 39 mmo's, it's simply the most competitive and fun type of open world pvp to exist to date. Meanwhile, Kotor is my favorite rpg so MJ went from 10/10 in my book to 11/10 now.

But will it be fun?







If the game is not fun.... none of these things will mean diddly squat to anyone.







Mark and the crew must deliver a base game experience that is both compelling and fun to play first and foremost, then all the effort will be worth it.











Also not to burst your bubble but many game companies do weekly streams, so this is not all that uncommon.

No worries, I always love your derogatory responses since you seem to never have anything better to do.





Yes, 3 faction pvp is the most consistent form of pvp that over time evolves, changes, and surprises me rather than 2 sided pvp that becomes stale and predictable over time. "Fun" is a matter of opinion, what you find fun I might not. Therefore, it may mean diddly squat to you and not to me.





Of course they must deliver a base game experience to build upon, as well as every developer who ever created a game in the history of game development.





Consider the bubble not bursted, as City State goes above and beyond "weekly streams" they do 4-7 a week at times. Meanwhile, they're not a "game company" to be comparing to everyone around, the train of topic in my response was focused on development of indie titles by crowdfunded means. I know you like your post count, but there isn't always a need to respond to every little thing. Re-reading something and thinking can yield the same result as asking short nonsensical questions.

That was derogatory?



CU is not launched - we dont know how it will turn out.



So asking "will it be fun" is totally valid, as for example look at Warhammer Online - That was also Jacobs game a nd he had the entire DAoC dev team and they delivered a real stinker.



DAoC was an amazing game and Warhammer was not even close eventhough on paper it sounded way more amazing.



The best devs CAN deliver games that are not fun, it happens. Same team that made an amazing game can underdeliver with the next one.



That was my entire point.



We all hope that CU brings DAoC 3 faction magic back, but will it?



Nobody knows






So yes MJ is an awesome guy, their transperancy is phenomenal, the game features are great..... again lets say the end product is not all that (devils advocate) - none of these things will matter to anyone.


Players want a good game in the end, thats the only thing that matters.


Ive never heard anyone say, well the game is not very good, but I keep playing it because the devs are transparent.

As per above, I agree with you,and FYI, I didn't think what you said was derogatory though the "burst your bubble" bit I could understand people reading it as harsher than I think you intended it to be.



I can see the light at the end of the tunnel...