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Camelot Unchained: Be Willing to Take Risks
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
A new developer blog has cropped up on the Camelot Unchained site. The title pretty much says it all: Foundational Principle #1 – Be willing to take risks, even if fortune doesn’t always favor the bold. It's a short, but informational, read.
To say this game’s design will be fraught with risks is an understatement. I know it would be very easy just to go out and use buzzwords like “sandbox” lots and lots in describing this game to attract players and investors. I could also go out and talk about how this game “Will revolutionize PvE!” and attract another group of players and investors (that whole mass market thing) but yet I choose to make an RvR-focused game that even if successful has no chance of threatening Dark Age of Camelot’s peak subs (250k), let alone something much larger like EQ1. What I want to do is take chances with this game that most, if not all, publishers wouldn’t want to take with it and that’s exactly what we are going to do.
Check it out on the Camelot Unchained site.
Comments
Not one series in the past did not make a successful revamp. And now bringing this concept over to MMOs? Hell developers should know by now that people stay away from MMOs which they have cancelled once. It is impossible to bring longevity in a product that is already a revamp of an original.
Thats like a warmed up drink: Okay memory but time to let go and here you're getting it served again, this time with a bitter aftertaste.
@ Torvaldr
No it does not take 30 million to make a Niche MMO LOL... hell not even a AAA themepark MMO.
Just because big AAA publishers spend this kind of cash on flops like SWTOR does not mean that every company now has to spend 30m to make an MMO.
A group of people who reallly want to make an MMO and could put the time into it could make one for next to nothing.
There are so many engines out there that you can use for next to nothing, free graphics software, free sound editing software, well free everything really thats close to if not as good as 3dmax, photoshop and so on...
So if he did have $5 million to put into this MMO then they could make it awesome.. as he said he is not aiming to get millions of people to play this game, a lot of people wont even like the idea of the game.
Also to the rvr only issue, why do you think there cant be competition between players.. why do you need mob drops if you could have player drops and so on.. also why cant players fight over resources.. PVE does not need to come into it really.
So tiered subs are p2w why would you say then when you have no idea what the different tiers could do..
The guy is being pretty honest about everything.. The game will not be to everyones taste and he is happy with that.. this is also somthing i think other devs should take a note of.. YOU CAN NOT PLEASE EVERYONE..
While it may be set in camelot this is a new title, this isn't a revamp of DAOC.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
It's not gonna matter the no PVE at all is just ridiculous. And it's gonna be a huge turnoff to alot of folks, I mean really people are gonna non-stop RVR all day everyday with nothing else to do...... mhmmm sureeeeee.........
I'm really happy for the people who actually like this but I mean I just can't wrap my head around why they would pull such a stupid move...........
DAoC cost $2.5 million to make. While that was a long time ago, and couldnt be done today (most likely) for that cost, it does not take 10's of millions to put them out. Unless you want to drop money on advertising campaigns and a hundred programmers.
reading this makes me very happy there is a company out there trying to innovate the MMO gaming space FINALY. like he said most if not all companies try and play it safe and just copy each other (Mostly WOW) but look at the way the market has been. Flop after flop and only now are we starting to here and see some companies start to move in the direction believe the industry needs to move to be successful.
I don't know Mark Jacobs, so no ill will here. Literally all I know about CU comes from their dev blogs.
So far most of the information given is rather insubstantial, but it sounds interesting. WAR was the only PVP I ever liked.
And I've made good experiences with developers who said "we go indie and do what we want". Namely, GGG.
Certainly a title to watch for me. And I admit I am a bit taken in by the line of "If we want day/nightcycles and limited fast travel, we'll put it in".
I'm a sucker for both, so, yeah, colour me intrigued.
But...
You need to at least double that, for modern wages for a start.
Then assuming they are going to be using more modern graphics, thats going to double your man hours too, as more detailed assets take longer for artists to create, and more fancy processing effects while maintaining large group performance means your engine riders have more work. Now cutting out pve drastically cuts design time, you don't need dungeon designers, you don't need mob artwork etc..
But $10mil sounds about right to me.
Be interesting to know the budget for planetside 2 as that's the closest modern approximation to what they are trying to do, though of course that doesn't have crafting / housing / economy.
DAOC Live (inactive): R11 Cleric R11 Druid R11 Minstrel R9 Eldritch R6 Sorc R6 Scout R6 Healer
Give me something worth fighting over, and I'd be more than happy to do it.
To me, theres got to be more than fighting the same ol' AI hoping to get a new (shinnie) ring so i can show it off at the bank, or worse, so i can fight the same AI to get the next (shinnie) ring.
Different strokes and all that....
warhammer online is pretty much only pvp now because no one does any pve at all , they also have wrath of heroes which is all pvp as well . That is just a lobby version similiar to LOL . People play both those games still to this date and getting 20k subs out of something similiar wouldnt be all that hard to do just by word of mouth alone.
Now add in a huge persistant world made up of three frontiers , where the pvp is fair on new players but rewarding on vets and I highly doubt anyone will miss doing pve. This game is set to be a niche not mainstream, you want to pve and raid you got Rift and WOW and a zillion other games out there to play. Some of us played DAOC for years and mostly did realm vs realm , same with warhammer online. There is a market for this regardless of what a few posters here think.
If you add in realm vs realm with say limited skill sets no charcter levels and you earn realm points like DAOC to buy more abilities and you can craft weapons and armor , have your own house and sige keeps . I see no reason this game would not have over 20k subs at the very least with all the crap games that have zero effort put into them having more than 20k subs easy.
Your argument is wrong simply because you don't need 30M $ to make a rvr-mmo. Daoc cost 2.5 M $ and reached 250K subscriber peak.
Born as a berserker, I was also a hero, a bounty hunter, a paladin ,a troubador and a paladin once again during my Mmo''s experiences .. Now travelling in a galaxy looking for a new adventure
21 year MMO veteran
PvP Raid Leader
Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
I am liking this, huge DAOC fan. The only thing I missed about the PvE in DAOC was pre ToA it didnt need every ones attention to just sit around and camp mobs. So it was a great way to socialize and get to know other players in your realm. DAoC is the one MMO I have played where I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with other players.
I love his philosophy of make a game with a certain idea and vision and just make the damn thing. I am so tired of game developers caving to the vocal minority, contrary to popular belief most if not all people dont really know what they want. I love the day/night cycle, while matched with real life or shorter, I love the housing, and I love the lack of instant travel.
I think one of the things that made DAoC RvR so compelling was the fact that if you lost, it could take a long time to get back to where you were. The problem with new games and WvW is the fact that the game developers want to get players into the action as fast as possible. This sounds great and its what players want but this just creates the issue of the massive mindless never ending zerg. This is a prime example of people thinking they want instant spawns and faster access to fights in WvW and that having this will make it better, when in fact it lessens the WvW.
So I am eagerly awaiting this game, and I love the no PvE. I just dont understand why another PvE MMO is needed. I think the problem with previous PvP only focused MMOs is the lack of persistent world and other things outside of straight PvP such as housing and crafting.
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
Agreed. There are already so many PvE MMO's, most of which have awful PvP systems. Why even try to compete with games like WoW in the PvE department? Just make an RvR focused game that destroys other MMO's in that regard. The main reason I quit WoW is because the PvP is instanced and meaningless. It's just a repetitive gear grind.