He also confirmed that the Depths will NOT be in at launch, which makes me think this thing could be coming out sooner than people realize. Only time will tell.
Interestingly in the MassivelyOP thread mentioned above Mark confirmed he is still targeting a release date in 2019 at this point.
He also said the moment it's no longer the case he will inform the backers immediately after the investors are notified.
A fair answer and still one of the best indie efforts considering the refund policy which I think no other studio has equaled.
I was thinking of refunding, but what the heck, he can keep it, I still want to see what comes out of all this.
But back to the OP, I won't back indie MMORPGs anymore due to their track records to date, will wait until the game is finished then decide.
I have nothing but respect for what they're trying to achieve but let's hope the game does NOT come out in 2019. This game is still in alpha by any semi-modern definition of the word and has a long way to go for a polished game.
Many of the items they are working on are engine related and the focus of the testing has been very specific, time limited, segments of the game. There is no open world with continuity of gameplay with all of the components of the game yet. Once that is present, there is still A LOT of work to actually build out and polish the game.
To date, the narrative has largely equated development progress of the game engine with development of the game. That's simply not the case - game developers who license an engine still have several years of work once they get their basic environments configured. The reason why there is still an NDA, still very limited testing, no open beta, very little game footage, etc., is because the majority of the work for the past 7 years has been building the engine. They are just now - last ~year or so - starting to try to wrap up the engine and actually begin the game development.
I sense the hesitancy from MJ to be more forthcoming is that he is congnisent of the 7 years that has passed and where the game stands. Let's hope the investors remain patient and the company financialy above water so they are not forced to release the game before it is ready. One of the founding principles/concepts was not releasing an incomplete product... at this point, it's better to get it right than release soon and wash 7 years down the drain.
Here's the thing, the gaming landscape is undergoing major paradigm shifts with VR, AR, next gen consoles/PC hardware and soon all of the new streaming services.
Will CU and other indies be able to keep pace and finally launch or will they need to go back and retool their games yet again to take best advantage of the new market.
By the time CU launches, I may very well decide to put away the PC for good and migrate to playing games on consoles or streaming platforms and very likely I'll have a lot of company.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I sense the hesitancy from MJ to be more forthcoming is that he is congnisent of the 7 years that has passed and where the game stands. Let's hope the investors remain patient and the company financialy above water so they are not forced to release the game before it is ready. One of the founding principles/concepts was not releasing an incomplete product... at this point, it's better to get it right than release soon and wash 7 years down the drain.
The hesitancy, I suspect, is because it was really misleading to sell people an MMO-RVR game, telling them it would only take a couple of years, when he knew what building an engine entails. He mislead and lied. It was a really sneaky deception that got covered with the smoke and mirrors of "transparency" and open ended refunds.
While you may have nothing but respect for him and that company I've pretty much lost all of it because of these "smoke and mirror" shenanigans. I'm not singling them out here either. They're in company alongside Ashes, Crowfall, CoE, Pantheon, and the rest.
I know no more than you, but my suspicion has always been that they did not expect to raise all this money (CU). I think he always planned to just build on his March to Oz or Smackhammer stuff and never really thought they would end up developing their own engine for 5-6 years.
Also, as always there is the refund he offers. If those were not offered I'd put him right up on the stake next to the other games you mentioned. I certainly won't get in the way of you or anyone else who wants to do so though.
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I sense the hesitancy from MJ to be more forthcoming is that he is congnisent of the 7 years that has passed and where the game stands. Let's hope the investors remain patient and the company financialy above water so they are not forced to release the game before it is ready. One of the founding principles/concepts was not releasing an incomplete product... at this point, it's better to get it right than release soon and wash 7 years down the drain.
The hesitancy, I suspect, is because it was really misleading to sell people an MMO-RVR game, telling them it would only take a couple of years, when he knew what building an engine entails. He mislead and lied. It was a really sneaky deception that got covered with the smoke and mirrors of "transparency" and open ended refunds.
While you may have nothing but respect for him and that company I've pretty much lost all of it because of these "smoke and mirror" shenanigans. I'm not singling them out here either. They're in company alongside Ashes, Crowfall, CoE, Pantheon, and the rest.
The respect comment was mainly around the vision/concept they started off with and what they claimed they were trying to achieve. I agree with some of your sentiment about the smoke and mirrors... how much was intentional forethought or simply ignorant scrambling to react to miss after miss, I don't know... however, the result is the same in that you have relatively little progress after 7 years of development. After that amount of time, the detailed updates, the "reasons," the excuses, etc., simply don't matter that much.
At the end of the day, it is what it is and they have to move forward by either trying to salvage/complete the game or shutting things down. I would anticipate that shutting down CU also means shutting down CSE or at a minimum, large layoffs. I hope they are able to keep things going long enough to complete at least their MVP (minimum viable product) and have that, hopefully, be enough to have some success so they can add to it.
That is looking like harder and harder of a challenge right now, but I hope they're able to pull it off.
He also confirmed that the Depths will NOT be in at launch, which makes me think this thing could be coming out sooner than people realize. Only time will tell.
Interestingly in the MassivelyOP thread mentioned above Mark confirmed he is still targeting a release date in 2019 at this point.
He also said the moment it's no longer the case he will inform the backers immediately after the investors are notified.
A fair answer and still one of the best indie efforts considering the refund policy which I think no other studio has equaled.
I was thinking of refunding, but what the heck, he can keep it, I still want to see what comes out of all this.
But back to the OP, I won't back indie MMORPGs anymore due to their track records to date, will wait until the game is finished then decide.
I have nothing but respect for what they're trying to achieve but let's hope the game does NOT come out in 2019. This game is still in alpha by any semi-modern definition of the word and has a long way to go for a polished game.
Many of the items they are working on are engine related and the focus of the testing has been very specific, time limited, segments of the game. There is no open world with continuity of gameplay with all of the components of the game yet. Once that is present, there is still A LOT of work to actually build out and polish the game.
To date, the narrative has largely equated development progress of the game engine with development of the game. That's simply not the case - game developers who license an engine still have several years of work once they get their basic environments configured. The reason why there is still an NDA, still very limited testing, no open beta, very little game footage, etc., is because the majority of the work for the past 7 years has been building the engine. They are just now - last ~year or so - starting to try to wrap up the engine and actually begin the game development.
I sense the hesitancy from MJ to be more forthcoming is that he is congnisent of the 7 years that has passed and where the game stands. Let's hope the investors remain patient and the company financialy above water so they are not forced to release the game before it is ready. One of the founding principles/concepts was not releasing an incomplete product... at this point, it's better to get it right than release soon and wash 7 years down the drain.
Agreed, but they did start real dev october 2013 (hiring, wrapping up old projects, training, buying equipment, etc.), which is 5.7 years not 7.
He also confirmed that the Depths will NOT be in at launch, which makes me think this thing could be coming out sooner than people realize. Only time will tell.
Interestingly in the MassivelyOP thread mentioned above Mark confirmed he is still targeting a release date in 2019 at this point.
He also said the moment it's no longer the case he will inform the backers immediately after the investors are notified.
A fair answer and still one of the best indie efforts considering the refund policy which I think no other studio has equaled.
I was thinking of refunding, but what the heck, he can keep it, I still want to see what comes out of all this.
But back to the OP, I won't back indie MMORPGs anymore due to their track records to date, will wait until the game is finished then decide.
I have nothing but respect for what they're trying to achieve but let's hope the game does NOT come out in 2019. This game is still in alpha by any semi-modern definition of the word and has a long way to go for a polished game.
Many of the items they are working on are engine related and the focus of the testing has been very specific, time limited, segments of the game. There is no open world with continuity of gameplay with all of the components of the game yet. Once that is present, there is still A LOT of work to actually build out and polish the game.
To date, the narrative has largely equated development progress of the game engine with development of the game. That's simply not the case - game developers who license an engine still have several years of work once they get their basic environments configured. The reason why there is still an NDA, still very limited testing, no open beta, very little game footage, etc., is because the majority of the work for the past 7 years has been building the engine. They are just now - last ~year or so - starting to try to wrap up the engine and actually begin the game development.
I sense the hesitancy from MJ to be more forthcoming is that he is congnisent of the 7 years that has passed and where the game stands. Let's hope the investors remain patient and the company financialy above water so they are not forced to release the game before it is ready. One of the founding principles/concepts was not releasing an incomplete product... at this point, it's better to get it right than release soon and wash 7 years down the drain.
Agreed, but they did start real dev october 2013 (hiring, wrapping up old projects, training, buying equipment, etc.), which is 5.7 years not 7.
Regardless, the meter started running the day the KSer funded, (they had access to other monies) so it's at 6 plus years and counting.
If they wasted 5 months not getting started (also recall original delivery timeline was two years) then it would well explain why it's taking longer, poor project management.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I sense the hesitancy from MJ to be more forthcoming is that he is congnisent of the 7 years that has passed and where the game stands. Let's hope the investors remain patient and the company financialy above water so they are not forced to release the game before it is ready. One of the founding principles/concepts was not releasing an incomplete product... at this point, it's better to get it right than release soon and wash 7 years down the drain.
The hesitancy, I suspect, is because it was really misleading to sell people an MMO-RVR game, telling them it would only take a couple of years, when he knew what building an engine entails. He mislead and lied. It was a really sneaky deception that got covered with the smoke and mirrors of "transparency" and open ended refunds.
While you may have nothing but respect for him and that company I've pretty much lost all of it because of these "smoke and mirror" shenanigans. I'm not singling them out here either. They're in company alongside Ashes, Crowfall, CoE, Pantheon, and the rest.
The respect comment was mainly around the vision/concept they started off with and what they claimed they were trying to achieve. I agree with some of your sentiment about the smoke and mirrors... how much was intentional forethought or simply ignorant scrambling to react to miss after miss, I don't know... however, the result is the same in that you have relatively little progress after 7 years of development. After that amount of time, the detailed updates, the "reasons," the excuses, etc., simply don't matter that much.
At the end of the day, it is what it is and they have to move forward by either trying to salvage/complete the game or shutting things down. I would anticipate that shutting down CU also means shutting down CSE or at a minimum, large layoffs. I hope they are able to keep things going long enough to complete at least their MVP (minimum viable product) and have that, hopefully, be enough to have some success so they can add to it.
That is looking like harder and harder of a challenge right now, but I hope they're able to pull it off.
So, i asked other backers on the CU forums what features are confirmed for launch and which are post launch, and got a direct answer from MJ.
The only remaining tough tech thing for launch is the AIR system. Which will obviously take more time than they expect cause that's how that works with this studio/game and it isn't an easy thing to do.
I don't think there will be a failure to launch, and I don't think they'll need to only do a minimum viable product.
I was in a test 2 months ago and one yesterday, and while it isn't close to done, the gameplay feel and enjoyability second-to-second went up like 40% for me over those 2 months.
The main issues for me right now are AIR system, combat polish, combat balance, and making complete open world gameplay loops.
I think they've got a couple of years yet to launch, but I'm realizing how much of what the game is missing is actually fairly fast-to-make polish stuff.
1. No way no how the game will be ready to any type of release within the year. That IMO is a lie to keep the hype / interest and money coming in from backers and investors.
2. MJ has bailed in the past before.
This game will probably take another 2 years to get into release state. Of course if their current progress is any indication it will likely be longer.
I don't think so, it feels like the Wheel of Time to be honest.. or specifically what happened to Robert Jordan. Everybody kept praising Robert for his incredible level of detail and his later books were 1000 page plus novels that didn't move the story along at all because he was obsessed with detail.
It feels like CU is obsessed with large scale wars and getting as many people into 1 spot as possible... but let's be honest here, massive large scale war isn't exactly all that exciting. It's fun to do a few times but the real enjoyment comes from small scale combat, taking objectives in a timely order.. not fighting for 12 hours straight only to knock down 1 wall.
It just feels like all their effort and testing goes into 1 aspect of the game.. if that is the only thing this game does at release I'm going to be really pissed.
Agreed most played prefer their actions having a decisive role in pvp oriented achievements. Large scale pvp doesn't have that. Why are all these newer mmorpg trying to push zerging so much? It never works out. Darkfall online is really the only mmorpg where your actions matter in zerg vs zerg, but even then only so much.
I don't wanna white-knight too hard here but some things to keep in mind.
MJ said during the KS that if CU didn't make the KS the game would not have happened. No second KS, no trying to get-by on paypal donations, or investors. No game.
Yes, six years has taken forever, but what was the alternative. CU is a game that needs to be made. Not because it's going to be a hit but because there are too few real MMO's coming out anymore. Everything is hybridized, instanced, and streamlined. I'd like to see a few games willing to go the other-way just to see what happens.
I see the whole thing has a pre-order, and CU is one of the games i backed on KS I actually feel confidant in. Looking at you CoE and NovusAeterno...... Progress has been slow, but it has been steady. You can see it every week in their updates. I still think the game is a year out, but I have a feeling next year will have even fewer decent games than this one.
**************************
As for the games focus on massive numbers of players.... I don't see that so much as the games focus so much as a technological hurdle they feel the need to try and jump. So many PVP games have lag issues in large battles. In fact, every single one I can think of does. The fact CU has spent so much effort to fix the issue is a good thing imho.
Crowfall is a lot further along in terms of game play, but every keep siege I've been in lags like a Mofo. So I'm happy CU is going a different route.
Sooo.... No. I'm not really happy with CU's progress. It's been six years and the game has no quests, little story, and a single dungeon. They've been working on nothing but the base combat for years. The latest tests I've seen say the game is still ALONG way from being done. It sucks, but theres not much I can do about. I'll keep checking in for tests every few months but I gave up following the game closely and browsing the forums along time ago.
Then again, I don't think they've done anything really wrong, at least from the newsletters and updates I've read. Shit happens in large projects and the game will come out eventually. Even if most of the backers are dead by the times it comes out.
Here's the thing, the gaming landscape is undergoing major paradigm shifts with VR, AR, next gen consoles/PC hardware and soon all of the new streaming services.
Will CU and other indies be able to keep pace and finally launch or will they need to go back and retool their games yet again to take best advantage of the new market.
By the time CU launches, I may very well decide to put away the PC for good and migrate to playing games on consoles or streaming platforms and very likely I'll have a lot of company.
Nonsense, though different points are wrong for a variety of reasons.
VR becoming mainstream to the point that gamers commonly spend hours per day playing it is still a long way off. Evolutionary advances on existing hardware aren't going to get us there anytime soon. If we ever reach the point that more gamers say "I won't play that game because it's not VR" than "I won't play that game because it requires VR", that won't come until long after CU is either launched or canceled.
The gaming move to consoles happened about 40 years ago. If anything, the direction in the last twenty years has been from consoles to PCs more than the other way around. You could personally do whatever, but that doesn't mean it's going to be common.
Game streaming doesn't fundamentally rely on anything about the particular game. Thin clients can already run arbitrary programs. There are probably some little optimizations you'd want in order to make streaming less bad than it would otherwise be, but if they need to make those optimizations, they can make them when the time comes. A heavy move to game streaming wouldn't kill CU unless it goes a long way toward killing off gaming in general.
And even if any of the paradigm changes you expect do become prevalent, the creation of a new market doesn't mean that the old ones go away. The last several years have seen the rise of a lot of bad mobile cash grabs, but that doesn't mean that all other games vanished. There are still plenty of PC games being created and sold.
I don't wanna white-knight too hard here but some things to keep in mind.
MJ said during the KS that if CU didn't make the KS the game would not have happened. No second KS, no trying to get-by on paypal donations, or investors. No game.
Yes, six years has taken forever, but what was the alternative. CU is a game that needs to be made. Not because it's going to be a hit but because there are too few real MMO's coming out anymore. Everything is hybridized, instanced, and streamlined. I'd like to see a few games willing to go the other-way just to see what happens.
I see the whole thing has a pre-order, and CU is one of the games i backed on KS I actually feel confidant in. Looking at you CoE and NovusAeterno...... Progress has been slow, but it has been steady. You can see it every week in their updates. I still think the game is a year out, but I have a feeling next year will have even fewer decent games than this one.
**************************
As for the games focus on massive numbers of players.... I don't see that so much as the games focus so much as a technological hurdle they feel the need to try and jump. So many PVP games have lag issues in large battles. In fact, every single one I can think of does. The fact CU has spent so much effort to fix the issue is a good thing imho.
Crowfall is a lot further along in terms of game play, but every keep siege I've been in lags like a Mofo. So I'm happy CU is going a different route.
Sooo.... No. I'm not really happy with CU's progress. It's been six years and the game has no quests, little story, and a single dungeon. They've been working on nothing but the base combat for years. The latest tests I've seen say the game is still ALONG way from being done. It sucks, but theres not much I can do about. I'll keep checking in for tests every few months but I gave up following the game closely and browsing the forums along time ago.
Then again, I don't think they've done anything really wrong, at least from the newsletters and updates I've read. Shit happens in large projects and the game will come out eventually. Even if most of the backers are dead by the times it comes out.
If you're waiting on quests, story, and dungeons to be added to CU, then you backed the wrong game.
Here's the thing, the gaming landscape is undergoing major paradigm shifts with VR, AR, next gen consoles/PC hardware and soon all of the new streaming services.
Will CU and other indies be able to keep pace and finally launch or will they need to go back and retool their games yet again to take best advantage of the new market.
By the time CU launches, I may very well decide to put away the PC for good and migrate to playing games on consoles or streaming platforms and very likely I'll have a lot of company.
Nonsense, though different points are wrong for a variety of reasons.
VR becoming mainstream to the point that gamers commonly spend hours per day playing it is still a long way off. Evolutionary advances on existing hardware aren't going to get us there anytime soon. If we ever reach the point that more gamers say "I won't play that game because it's not VR" than "I won't play that game because it requires VR", that won't come until long after CU is either launched or canceled.
The gaming move to consoles happened about 40 years ago. If anything, the direction in the last twenty years has been from consoles to PCs more than the other way around. You could personally do whatever, but that doesn't mean it's going to be common.
Game streaming doesn't fundamentally rely on anything about the particular game. Thin clients can already run arbitrary programs. There are probably some little optimizations you'd want in order to make streaming less bad than it would otherwise be, but if they need to make those optimizations, they can make them when the time comes. A heavy move to game streaming wouldn't kill CU unless it goes a long way toward killing off gaming in general.
And even if any of the paradigm changes you expect do become prevalent, the creation of a new market doesn't mean that the old ones go away. The last several years have seen the rise of a lot of bad mobile cash grabs, but that doesn't mean that all other games vanished. There are still plenty of PC games being created and sold.
Since 2010 sales of desktop PCs has steadily declined from 158M units shipped to a projected 79.5M by 2023.
Laptops sales are fairing a bit better, only declining from 209M in 2011 to 170M, but many of those are likely not capable of running this sort of game well.
As this game is being targeted to run "well" on a mid range desk top PC is it unreasonable to assume there are fewer customers capable of buying and playing this game?
More people are gaming now than ever before, perhaps just not on their desktop PCs.
There is a qualifier though, sales of gaming PCs has actually been on the rise recently due to the growing eSport market but it remains to be seen how much crossover there might be for those buyers and this sort of title, my guess is not so much.
I agree with the assessment VR is likely to remain mostly an outlier, but if the new game streaming services really take hold will CU and other MMOs run well on them, or will devs need to spend more time and effort making sure they do so?
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
In answer to the OP, no. I pay for games when they release - never before.
This is a good approach, but good games come out of Kickstarter (Divinity Original Sin 1/2, A Hat in Time, as a few examples).
This means there's value in Kickstarting games with solid developers who seem like they can get what they're promising done.
Single player games I'll agree, MMORPGs are a far more ambitious undertaking and few indies IMO have raised enough funding to even have a chance at delivering a decent game.
Outside of SC, CF, CU, and perhaps Pantheon and Ashes most of the others IMO just don't have the funding in place to succeed.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
In answer to the OP, no. I pay for games when they release - never before.
This is a good approach, but good games come out of Kickstarter (Divinity Original Sin 1/2, A Hat in Time, as a few examples).
This means there's value in Kickstarting games with solid developers who seem like they can get what they're promising done.
Single player games I'll agree, MMORPGs are a far more ambitious undertaking and few indies IMO have raised enough funding to even have a chance at delivering a decent game.
Outside of SC, CF, CU, and perhaps Pantheon and Ashes most of the others IMO just don't have the funding in place to succeed.
I agree that you need more funding to deliver a decent MMO than a decent SP game.
And ya, those 5 are the only ones I'm paying attention to out of the in-development ones, also Chronicles of Elyria because I'm curious if they'll actually make something out of the concerning+plodding progress they're making.
Controlling scope creep seems to be the order of the day, and CF, CU, Ashes and Pantheon all seem like they're doing a good job at that, so, hopefully in 2-3 years we'll have all of them released and all of them decent.
Also, was in a test for CU yesterday, had fun like no other test before it.
Still needs work and more progress and stuff added etc, but this was the most fun I've had by far.
Also needs some work on the documentation or in-game feedback end, cause I was getting dummied in melee by an archer while playing the best melee class, but the actual combat itself was fun.
It's still gonna be between 18 and 30 more months (seewhatididthere?) til we see release on this game, but they should have the funding to make it to the end (they may get more $ from investors/publishers if needed, also I think MJ said he has access to 4-5million more he hasn't called for yet so they'd probably use that first).
I'm hopeful they will eventually get the pvp mechanics figured out.
My bigger fear is the "why" or the "hook." Part of what made DAOC's pvp/rvr appealing was the pve and the actual realms you were a part of. Remove the pve and you care much less about your realm. It takes on more of a FPS style feel where you have a base that you defend while you tried to take over your opponents.
This was evidenced in the warhammer online model where the first 3 tiers of the game felt super fragmented and became waste lands you never returned too. It also made you care less about your realm and the world you were a part of.
Even if they nail the pvp mechanics and keep sieges, there is much more that attracts a MMO fan. The depth of the world, exploration, stories, little areas to explore, etc... all play a critical role in establishing the "why." CU is a game engine with some pvp mechanics right now. While that still needs significant time to complete, depth of experience and world is another massive effort on top of that.
I'm hopeful they will eventually get the pvp mechanics figured out.
My bigger fear is the "why" or the "hook." Part of what made DAOC's pvp/rvr appealing was the pve and the actual realms you were a part of. Remove the pve and you care much less about your realm. It takes on more of a FPS style feel where you have a base that you defend while you tried to take over your opponents.
This was evidenced in the warhammer online model where the first 3 tiers of the game felt super fragmented and became waste lands you never returned too. It also made you care less about your realm and the world you were a part of.
Even if they nail the pvp mechanics and keep sieges, there is much more that attracts a MMO fan. The depth of the world, exploration, stories, little areas to explore, etc... all play a critical role in establishing the "why." CU is a game engine with some pvp mechanics right now. While that still needs significant time to complete, depth of experience and world is another massive effort on top of that.
I agree so much with everything said here.
The time this is taking is far less of a problem than - will this be any fun to play once out.
That is a far bigger problem. So far - they have a huge amount of work to do to make me want to play this.
I could not care less how long they take, if it is good and the sort of MMO I would play I will be there. The only reason I follow development is the CEO is a drama magnet which can be quite amusing.
I'm hopeful they will eventually get the pvp mechanics figured out.
My bigger fear is the "why" or the "hook." Part of what made DAOC's pvp/rvr appealing was the pve and the actual realms you were a part of. Remove the pve and you care much less about your realm. It takes on more of a FPS style feel where you have a base that you defend while you tried to take over your opponents.
This was evidenced in the warhammer online model where the first 3 tiers of the game felt super fragmented and became waste lands you never returned too. It also made you care less about your realm and the world you were a part of.
Even if they nail the pvp mechanics and keep sieges, there is much more that attracts a MMO fan. The depth of the world, exploration, stories, little areas to explore, etc... all play a critical role in establishing the "why." CU is a game engine with some pvp mechanics right now. While that still needs significant time to complete, depth of experience and world is another massive effort on top of that.
I agree there needs to be a hook thru an emotional attachment to the realm, and I don't think killing mobs/raids/doing quests is required to make this happen.
An emotional attachment to the realm and its actions doesn't mean you can't play all three realms - just that when you're playing TDD, you care about your (non-jerk***) realmmates at least slightly more than random enemies.
I'm hopeful they will eventually get the pvp mechanics figured out.
My bigger fear is the "why" or the "hook." Part of what made DAOC's pvp/rvr appealing was the pve and the actual realms you were a part of. Remove the pve and you care much less about your realm. It takes on more of a FPS style feel where you have a base that you defend while you tried to take over your opponents.
This was evidenced in the warhammer online model where the first 3 tiers of the game felt super fragmented and became waste lands you never returned too. It also made you care less about your realm and the world you were a part of.
Even if they nail the pvp mechanics and keep sieges, there is much more that attracts a MMO fan. The depth of the world, exploration, stories, little areas to explore, etc... all play a critical role in establishing the "why." CU is a game engine with some pvp mechanics right now. While that still needs significant time to complete, depth of experience and world is another massive effort on top of that.
I agree so much with everything said here.
The time this is taking is far less of a problem than - will this be any fun to play once out.
That is a far bigger problem. So far - they have a huge amount of work to do to make me want to play this.
This is the big question for any game that's still in development, including this one.
It's too soon to say whether it'll be fun.
I was in testing today, and had fun, but there's a lot more work to make complete and enjoyable game loops, social features (at all levels of the game), etc.
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Many of the items they are working on are engine related and the focus of the testing has been very specific, time limited, segments of the game. There is no open world with continuity of gameplay with all of the components of the game yet. Once that is present, there is still A LOT of work to actually build out and polish the game.
To date, the narrative has largely equated development progress of the game engine with development of the game. That's simply not the case - game developers who license an engine still have several years of work once they get their basic environments configured. The reason why there is still an NDA, still very limited testing, no open beta, very little game footage, etc., is because the majority of the work for the past 7 years has been building the engine. They are just now - last ~year or so - starting to try to wrap up the engine and actually begin the game development.
I sense the hesitancy from MJ to be more forthcoming is that he is congnisent of the 7 years that has passed and where the game stands. Let's hope the investors remain patient and the company financialy above water so they are not forced to release the game before it is ready. One of the founding principles/concepts was not releasing an incomplete product... at this point, it's better to get it right than release soon and wash 7 years down the drain.
Will CU and other indies be able to keep pace and finally launch or will they need to go back and retool their games yet again to take best advantage of the new market.
By the time CU launches, I may very well decide to put away the PC for good and migrate to playing games on consoles or streaming platforms and very likely I'll have a lot of company.
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Also, as always there is the refund he offers. If those were not offered I'd put him right up on the stake next to the other games you mentioned. I certainly won't get in the way of you or anyone else who wants to do so though.
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At the end of the day, it is what it is and they have to move forward by either trying to salvage/complete the game or shutting things down. I would anticipate that shutting down CU also means shutting down CSE or at a minimum, large layoffs. I hope they are able to keep things going long enough to complete at least their MVP (minimum viable product) and have that, hopefully, be enough to have some success so they can add to it.
That is looking like harder and harder of a challenge right now, but I hope they're able to pull it off.
If they wasted 5 months not getting started (also recall original delivery timeline was two years) then it would well explain why it's taking longer, poor project management.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
The only remaining tough tech thing for launch is the AIR system. Which will obviously take more time than they expect cause that's how that works with this studio/game and it isn't an easy thing to do.
I don't think there will be a failure to launch, and I don't think they'll need to only do a minimum viable product.
I was in a test 2 months ago and one yesterday, and while it isn't close to done, the gameplay feel and enjoyability second-to-second went up like 40% for me over those 2 months.
The main issues for me right now are AIR system, combat polish, combat balance, and making complete open world gameplay loops.
I think they've got a couple of years yet to launch, but I'm realizing how much of what the game is missing is actually fairly fast-to-make polish stuff.
1. No way no how the game will be ready to any type of release within the year. That IMO is a lie to keep the hype / interest and money coming in from backers and investors.
2. MJ has bailed in the past before.
This game will probably take another 2 years to get into release state. Of course if their current progress is any indication it will likely be longer.
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Ask those poor people that backed Star Citizen how they feel.
Raquelis in various games
Played: Everything
Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6
Wants: The World
Anticipating: Everquest Next Crowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
MJ said during the KS that if CU didn't make the KS the game would not have happened. No second KS, no trying to get-by on paypal donations, or investors. No game.
Yes, six years has taken forever, but what was the alternative. CU is a game that needs to be made. Not because it's going to be a hit but because there are too few real MMO's coming out anymore. Everything is hybridized, instanced, and streamlined. I'd like to see a few games willing to go the other-way just to see what happens.
I see the whole thing has a pre-order, and CU is one of the games i backed on KS I actually feel confidant in. Looking at you CoE and NovusAeterno...... Progress has been slow, but it has been steady. You can see it every week in their updates. I still think the game is a year out, but I have a feeling next year will have even fewer decent games than this one.
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As for the games focus on massive numbers of players.... I don't see that so much as the games focus so much as a technological hurdle they feel the need to try and jump. So many PVP games have lag issues in large battles. In fact, every single one I can think of does. The fact CU has spent so much effort to fix the issue is a good thing imho.
Crowfall is a lot further along in terms of game play, but every keep siege I've been in lags like a Mofo. So I'm happy CU is going a different route.
Sooo.... No. I'm not really happy with CU's progress. It's been six years and the game has no quests, little story, and a single dungeon. They've been working on nothing but the base combat for years. The latest tests I've seen say the game is still ALONG way from being done. It sucks, but theres not much I can do about. I'll keep checking in for tests every few months but I gave up following the game closely and browsing the forums along time ago.
Then again, I don't think they've done anything really wrong, at least from the newsletters and updates I've read. Shit happens in large projects and the game will come out eventually. Even if most of the backers are dead by the times it comes out.
VR becoming mainstream to the point that gamers commonly spend hours per day playing it is still a long way off. Evolutionary advances on existing hardware aren't going to get us there anytime soon. If we ever reach the point that more gamers say "I won't play that game because it's not VR" than "I won't play that game because it requires VR", that won't come until long after CU is either launched or canceled.
The gaming move to consoles happened about 40 years ago. If anything, the direction in the last twenty years has been from consoles to PCs more than the other way around. You could personally do whatever, but that doesn't mean it's going to be common.
Game streaming doesn't fundamentally rely on anything about the particular game. Thin clients can already run arbitrary programs. There are probably some little optimizations you'd want in order to make streaming less bad than it would otherwise be, but if they need to make those optimizations, they can make them when the time comes. A heavy move to game streaming wouldn't kill CU unless it goes a long way toward killing off gaming in general.
And even if any of the paradigm changes you expect do become prevalent, the creation of a new market doesn't mean that the old ones go away. The last several years have seen the rise of a lot of bad mobile cash grabs, but that doesn't mean that all other games vanished. There are still plenty of PC games being created and sold.
DAOC Live (inactive): R11 Cleric R11 Druid R11 Minstrel R9 Eldritch R6 Sorc R6 Scout R6 Healer
Laptops sales are fairing a bit better, only declining from 209M in 2011 to 170M, but many of those are likely not capable of running this sort of game well.
As this game is being targeted to run "well" on a mid range desk top PC is it unreasonable to assume there are fewer customers capable of buying and playing this game?
More people are gaming now than ever before, perhaps just not on their desktop PCs.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-forecast-for-tablets-laptops-and-desktop-pcs/
There is a qualifier though, sales of gaming PCs has actually been on the rise recently due to the growing eSport market but it remains to be seen how much crossover there might be for those buyers and this sort of title, my guess is not so much.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/gaming-pc-sales/?linker=1*uzfehw*clientId*bUVvaXYya3B5Vk1jdjhHU19xcTJ4QzZXeXN4SXV5blBQNWlYb0taTFNSR2tlSC1iUS1JcjBBcS04NGdoT0F5Nw..
I agree with the assessment VR is likely to remain mostly an outlier, but if the new game streaming services really take hold will CU and other MMOs run well on them, or will devs need to spend more time and effort making sure they do so?
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Outside of SC, CF, CU, and perhaps Pantheon and Ashes most of the others IMO just don't have the funding in place to succeed.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
My bigger fear is the "why" or the "hook." Part of what made DAOC's pvp/rvr appealing was the pve and the actual realms you were a part of. Remove the pve and you care much less about your realm. It takes on more of a FPS style feel where you have a base that you defend while you tried to take over your opponents.
This was evidenced in the warhammer online model where the first 3 tiers of the game felt super fragmented and became waste lands you never returned too. It also made you care less about your realm and the world you were a part of.
Even if they nail the pvp mechanics and keep sieges, there is much more that attracts a MMO fan. The depth of the world, exploration, stories, little areas to explore, etc... all play a critical role in establishing the "why." CU is a game engine with some pvp mechanics right now. While that still needs significant time to complete, depth of experience and world is another massive effort on top of that.