MarkJacobsCEO City State EntertainmentMemberRarePosts: 649
Originally posted by stux
Originally posted by MarkJacobs
I need the Kickstarter to fund to prove to the other investors (and to myself) that I'm not just this grumpy old game guy who thinks he has a good idea but nobody wants to play the game but a few other old school gamers. Our KS will be the proof of interest from our target market.
Mark
This basically proves what I replied.
Mark you probably should not be on here discussing your game, no offense. You are going to get quoted all over the place . Plus, people will read into it. Myself, when I see a lead dev in a place like this it makes me think the guy is going to be playing the game and picking favorites.
Do you guys really want ALL games to do this?
Mark (hah funny pun) my words, this will be the new way for investors to test potential game ideas. The whole new proof of concept (a saying Darkfall's AV likes to toss around). Plus, free starting capital.
I don't mind being quoted. Sometimes I say something that I wish I hadn't but that goes with the territory. As far as that quote, it's accurate. I've been giping about what was going to happen in the MMO space for the last 7years to EA, analysts, etc. Sometimes I was listened to, sometimes I was not and when I wasn't and things then went the way I said they would, well, grumpiness ensued.
As to Kickstarter, the best thing about KS is that it does free game developers to make the game their fans want and not the game the publishers want. Sometimes the publishers can be very smart, sometimes not but at least this way the fans get the game they wanted *if* the developers come through. That's one of the reasons I'm spending so much time talking about the game and not just doing interviews. I want our potential backers to know exactly what game I will make.
Now, could Kickstarter turn out to be a flash in the pan, yep, if game developers don't come through, it will kill crowd funding for big projects and that would be a real shame. KS has the potential to put more power in the hands of developers and players than ever before. Now we as an industry have to not mess it up. But here's why I'm excited for crowd funding no matter what happens with CU:
Developers can use CF to not only gauge interest but more importantly, use it as leverage for distribution, partnering, licensing etc. deals as well as saying to a publisher "Well, you might want to own the IP but we'll take this game to CF so..." The industry is in a real bad place right now in terms of the balance of power. Publishers have gotten quite demanding (more so than any other time I remember) about IP ownership even when it's a distribution deal (which used to be almost unheard of in the past) and *if* game developers can use KS to create successful games, there will be a shift back to a fairer sharing of ownership (or none).
I'm not saying this to convince anybody to back our game because frankly, I think most people here already made their minds up here. What I am still doing here is just talking to players and getting their feedback for CU. As to what I'm saying about KS, well, watch what happens with it over the next few years. If guys like Obsidian, Chris Roberts, etc. deliver on their games, things will really change for the better for players and developers alike. If developers can't deliver the goods, well, CF will no longer be viable for developers and publishers will hold all the cards. It will be interesting to watch.
Couldn't find the kickstarter page. Googled it and no luck at all. Kickstarter site sucks, TBH. But if someone provides a link, I might donate a little.
Originally posted by DavisFlight Publishers don't fund GOOD MMOs, they fund WoW clones.
True.
The Kickstarter doesn't start until March.
They can't find conventional funding because every time this formula has been tried it's been a financial failure. If your definition of good is a MMO that never made any money I suppose it's true.
I'm sorry, but what fantasy land do you live in?
It's the WoW clones that have all been huge flops. They usually flop so hard they take the company that made them with them. Two of Funcom's partners went bankrupt after Age of Conan flopped. SWTOR destroyed most of Bioware and Mythic, and crippled EA for a couple of months too.
The only MMOs that have done really well over the years, post WoW, are the ones that do unique things, with solid execution, then build on it. See: Eve, Darkfall. Those games have grown over time, while all WoW clones have died within weeks of launch.
Publishers don't know jack all about MMOs. Hence why we've been in an MMO dark age for almost 8 years now.
DaoC wasnt big, it was average in terms of player size. It was meant to be a newer EQ with ooh ahh advanced cutting edge gameplay and it barely was 1/3rd as popular. It was also the first MMO with massive in game player protests. Now jump to Warhammer, it was supposed to be DaoC with ooh ahh advanced cutting edge gameplay and...yep, lost most of its players in under a year because it wasnt.
The industry doesnt want to back him because...wait for it, he wants to make another DaoC type game with ooh ahh, advanced cutting edge gameplay.
Much like Raph Koster, the industry took a while but finally learned that he doesnt live up to his hype and his ideas arent really great.
Actually, DAoC had 250K subs at peak, EQ had 450K subs at peak. And as you know, we developed DAoC in 18 months at 2.5M vs 3 years at Sony and at a much great expense. And of course, DAoC is still running as is EQ, when so many other MMORPGs aren't, as subscription-based games.
As to most of the rest, well, you are entitled to your opinion of course.
You know, you are correct. I thought they topped 750k at its peak. Development time however matters little as your Hibernia players will attest to your taking a year to start to actually notice them, and even more time to act on their protests. Again, if you would just open your mind to the flaws of the past the industry will embrace you, Koster was very unwilling and its been 5 years trying to get backing for his start-up company...which is still waiting.
We want desginers that evolve, not ones stuck in the past. We already know we can play games outside the box of closed off factions at war. time to throw that box away and UNLEASH your games and give them more freedom.
One can only imagine what DaoC would have been like with a real war not boxed into closed PvP areas when we know (now admittedly) that if you make PvP optional, make town/quest NPCs non-attackable, you remove all the reasons to keep PvP boxed in and still can provide PvP areas like DaoC had that give objectives and bonuses to the controlling side. I am not a WoW fan, but lets admit it, if they had created more open world obectives, they would have had a near perfect system because Vanilla WoW where people were attacking the main cities WAS FUN AS HELL, but you can preserve PvE by making quest NPCs unattackable so those not wanting to take part can still play as they want.
You have some good ideas, so do many others...its the restrictions you place on your games and the things you leave out of them that make a game fail, fall into a niche, become average or a great success. Be a success, I would much rather see you succeed now, than fail...but all I have read so far is...stuck in the past.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
A big name in the industry wanting to make a successor to one of the insutry's big names...and he is resorting to public funding?
It doesn't compute. If he wanted to make a low budget MMO he should have no problem securing funding, and the freedom to make the game he wanted to make.
But instead he is choosing to take advantage of the public, using the Camelot name to secure free capital he doesnt need to pay back. The whole thing seems off to me.
Just consider: If you use borrowed money, you have incentive to succeed. If you use free money, then it doesnt matter, you dont have to pay anyone back.
Kickstarter for a startup company of unknown developers is one thing. For a big name person developing a big name game though...It doesnt add up.
First Mark is a big name in game development history, but his new company is not. He is putting money into CU if the KS goal is hit. He is using KS to judge player interest. Think of it as a straw poll. If the public proves they want the game 60% or more of the total money will come from Mark and his other investors. If KS goal doesn't get reached then it will not be made because the public had shown there isn't enough interest.
Trion was able to get MAJOR funding for a startup company.
Its a backwards way of deciding to make a game or not. Of course there is massive demand for a successor to DAoC. He doesn't need kickstarter to determine that. Its if people are willing (or gullibe enough) to donate some risk free, free capital to him. If he cant get enough handouts, he wont make the game.
Its a major red flag. if he *really* wanted to make CU, he would make CU.
I agree with early post completely. Red flag.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
I played hibernia. we were pretty much always the middle faction, its midgard that occasionally lacked numbers.
again your knowledge from daoc with your "400 man guild that all quit on the same day" never ceases to amaze me.
p.s you were probably playing swg at the time. p.p.s CU has nothing to do with TESO not having enough wookies and lightsabers for your liking. they are games being built by 2 separate studios where the project leads happened to work together once. p.p.p.s maybe you should start your own kickstarter for "stellar body battles universe" instead of bitching about games you have no intention of ever playing.
The thing with trion is they went outside the box. They got their funding from the film & tv industry rather than the crusty old game publishers. Zenimax is a simmilar setup, its owned by film and multimedia types.
Unless your lucky enough to work for a great publisher like valve or zenimax its probably a damn site more fun working as an independent. I know from experience many years ago when Sony bought the company I worked for and made all sorts of silly decisions from on high, like relocating to London which caused many of us to walk as we weren't going to pay triple the mortgage for moving south. Smaller companies work better as there are less layers of management and the bosses are closer to what is really going on.
A big name in the industry wanting to make a successor to one of the insutry's big names...and he is resorting to public funding?
It doesn't compute. If he wanted to make a low budget MMO he should have no problem securing funding, and the freedom to make the game he wanted to make.
But instead he is choosing to take advantage of the public, using the Camelot name to secure free capital he doesnt need to pay back. The whole thing seems off to me.
Just consider: If you use borrowed money, you have incentive to succeed. If you use free money, then it doesnt matter, you dont have to pay anyone back.
Kickstarter for a startup company of unknown developers is one thing. For a big name person developing a big name game though...It doesnt add up.
First Mark is a big name in game development history, but his new company is not. He is putting money into CU if the KS goal is hit. He is using KS to judge player interest. Think of it as a straw poll. If the public proves they want the game 60% or more of the total money will come from Mark and his other investors. If KS goal doesn't get reached then it will not be made because the public had shown there isn't enough interest.
Trion was able to get MAJOR funding for a startup company.
Its a backwards way of deciding to make a game or not. Of course there is massive demand for a successor to DAoC. He doesn't need kickstarter to determine that. Its if people are willing (or gullibe enough) to donate some risk free, free capital to him. If he cant get enough handouts, he wont make the game.
Its a major red flag. if he *really* wanted to make CU, he would make CU.
I agree with early post completely. Red flag.
As can be seen by my posts here I am not exactly on his side but...you guys are wrong.
As he said in his reply to me, DaoC had 250k people at its peak and its true.
But even if every single person that played DaoC wanted another(which isnt the case because I played it along with almost 350 of my guildmates who all quit near the same time for similar reasons and we dont want it back), 250k people wanting it is NOT A GREAT DEMAND in todays MMO market of over 20 million people...yes, there is that many if you factor in MMOs all over the world, there are a bunch of Asian MMOs with millions of people playing it.
The fact is, major companies dont want to invest in a DaoC sequal so he coudlnt get major backing for it...that is also the reason why the TES IP is being used by his former design partners for their DaoC game, because a major company required a POPULAR IP name over the unpopular DaoC name.
Anyway, I actually DO believe him when he says he is trying to prove something to the industry, I just think it may be more along the lines of trying to prove an old game design is still vialbe in a market that has evolved greatly over the years.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
MarkJacobsCEO City State EntertainmentMemberRarePosts: 649
Originally posted by jtcgs
Originally posted by MarkJacobs
Originally posted by jtcgs
It does compute.
DaoC wasnt big, it was average in terms of player size. It was meant to be a newer EQ with ooh ahh advanced cutting edge gameplay and it barely was 1/3rd as popular. It was also the first MMO with massive in game player protests. Now jump to Warhammer, it was supposed to be DaoC with ooh ahh advanced cutting edge gameplay and...yep, lost most of its players in under a year because it wasnt.
The industry doesnt want to back him because...wait for it, he wants to make another DaoC type game with ooh ahh, advanced cutting edge gameplay.
Much like Raph Koster, the industry took a while but finally learned that he doesnt live up to his hype and his ideas arent really great.
Actually, DAoC had 250K subs at peak, EQ had 450K subs at peak. And as you know, we developed DAoC in 18 months at 2.5M vs 3 years at Sony and at a much great expense. And of course, DAoC is still running as is EQ, when so many other MMORPGs aren't, as subscription-based games.
As to most of the rest, well, you are entitled to your opinion of course.
You know, you are correct. I thought they topped 750k at its peak. Development time however matters little as your Hibernia players will attest to your taking a year to start to actually notice them, and even more time to act on their protests. Again, if you would just open your mind to the flaws of the past the industry will embrace you, Koster was very unwilling and its been 5 years trying to get backing for his start-up company...which is still waiting.
We want desginers that evolve, not ones stuck in the past. We already know we can play games outside the box of closed off factions at war. time to throw that box away and UNLEASH your games and give them more freedom.
One can only imagine what DaoC would have been like with a real war not boxed into closed PvP areas when we know (now admittedly) that if you make PvP optional, make town/quest NPCs non-attackable, you remove all the reasons to keep PvP boxed in and still can provide PvP areas like DaoC had that give objectives and bonuses to the controlling side. I am not a WoW fan, but lets admit it, if they had created more open world obectives, they would have had a near perfect system because Vanilla WoW where people were attacking the main cities WAS FUN AS HELL, but you can preserve PvE by making quest NPCs unattackable so those not wanting to take part can still play as they want.
You have some good ideas, so do many others...its the restrictions you place on your games and the things you leave out of them that make a game fail, fall into a niche, become average or a great success. Be a success, I would much rather see you succeed now, than fail...but all I have read so far is...stuck in the past.
See, we can agree on something! We might have to be careful, that could start a trend.
Seriously though, I know that a lot of what I'm saying might seem stuck in the past as you suggest with RK. I'm truly interested in hearing what you and others have to say on this. Let me explain a couple of things though:
1) As far as being a niche game, the reason I'm saying it is not because I want to make DAoC-lite but rather, because I do want to take chances as I've only talked about some of the ways we are going to do so because I am trying not to hype the game but also I want to do it slowly over the next six weeks. There is no way to go to a publisher today and say "I want to take risks with this game, I want money, control and no interference" in today's MMO market. Having DAoC as my #1 game and even with WAR's issues (which I have acknowledged time and again), publishers and investors are really leary of this space in the US. Asia is a different matter of course.
2) Doing an "average" game doesn't interest me, it really doesn't. I'm not trying to create this game just so I can relive my past but rather, try to approach the stories that I truly do love and do something different with them. I'm sort of between a rock and a hard place here in that people here have had enough hype from almost all, if not all, MMORPGs that have launched in the post-WoW era so I'm trying really hard just to give out my thoughts with any adjectives, without the hype and hoopla of WAR, Rift (remember Trion saying that they were going after WoW numbers), SWToR, etc. I'm surrounded by a bunch of mostly young, hard-core gamers and the ideas we are throwing around are not rehashes of other games but do contain lots of interesting concepts that we will talk about when appropriate. All I can say is what I have said again and again that I am not trying to make a DAoC-lite or even a DAoC 2. We talk about new approaches/mechanics all the time here and have been doing so for more than 6 months because that's the game we want to make.
As to Hibernia, well, I'll say something I have said before and that is for CU we will have the darn tools we need in place before the game launches so that some of the problems we had really knowing what was going on inside our game won't happen again.
Also, since you seem partially motivated by interest in this genre (if not this game yet), why don't you start a topic with your ideas for a game like CU. I am NOT being the least bit sarcastic with that statement, nor challenging, truly. I think you know me well enough that I could throw off some sarcastic remark (as I would have in the past possibly) but I am really interested in hearing what you have to say again, truly. I might not agree but I'm certainly willing to listen, especially now.
I do appreciate the feedback and the willingness to listen.
This statement was made 14 months ago and the players of the realm of Hibernia are tired of waiting. On April 12, 2003 there will be a formal sit-in protest on the Pendragon server of Dark Age of Camelot. This protest is to once again voice the concerns that make Hibernia feel, in Mark Jacobs words, like the "poor stepchild" of the game.
This protest will begin at 8pm eastern. Any wishing to involve themselves in this protest should come to the town of Mag Mell on Pendragon at 8pm eastern on April 12. Protestors will be invited to the guild "Hibernian Protest".
Your attempt to deny history...is denied. Any REAL fan of the game is willing to admit there was a massive mistake made on the part of Mystic with Hibernia, their being so weak for so long made RvR that much worse, the only people that deny that were those that needed a weak enemy to steamroll over.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
A big name in the industry wanting to make a successor to one of the insutry's big names...and he is resorting to public funding?
It doesn't compute. If he wanted to make a low budget MMO he should have no problem securing funding, and the freedom to make the game he wanted to make.
But instead he is choosing to take advantage of the public, using the Camelot name to secure free capital he doesnt need to pay back. The whole thing seems off to me.
Just consider: If you use borrowed money, you have incentive to succeed. If you use free money, then it doesnt matter, you dont have to pay anyone back.
Kickstarter for a startup company of unknown developers is one thing. For a big name person developing a big name game though...It doesnt add up.
First Mark is a big name in game development history, but his new company is not. He is putting money into CU if the KS goal is hit. He is using KS to judge player interest. Think of it as a straw poll. If the public proves they want the game 60% or more of the total money will come from Mark and his other investors. If KS goal doesn't get reached then it will not be made because the public had shown there isn't enough interest.
Trion was able to get MAJOR funding for a startup company.
Its a backwards way of deciding to make a game or not. Of course there is massive demand for a successor to DAoC. He doesn't need kickstarter to determine that. Its if people are willing (or gullibe enough) to donate some risk free, free capital to him. If he cant get enough handouts, he wont make the game.
Its a major red flag. if he *really* wanted to make CU, he would make CU.
I agree with early post completely. Red flag.
As can be seen by my posts here I am not exactly on his side but...you guys are wrong.
As he said in his reply to me, DaoC had 250k people at its peak and its true.
But even if every single person that played DaoC wanted another(which isnt the case because I played it along with almost 350 of my guildmates who all quit near the same time for similar reasons and we dont want it back), 250k people wanting it is NOT A GREAT DEMAND in todays MMO market of over 20 million people...yes, there is that many if you factor in MMOs all over the world, there are a bunch of Asian MMOs with millions of people playing it.
The fact is, major companies dont want to invest in a DaoC sequal so he coudlnt get major backing for it...that is also the reason why the TES IP is being used by his former design partners for their DaoC game, because a major company required a POPULAR IP name over the unpopular DaoC name.
Anyway, I actually DO believe him when he says he is trying to prove something to the industry, I just think it may be more along the lines of trying to prove an old game design is still vialbe in a market that has evolved greatly over the years.
Ultimately, I don't agree with the kickstarter process as a whole for any creative project. It's turned the methods of a well established industry process on it's head. You make something great and then you get rewarded... but kickstarter is messing it all up.. people are getting rewarded before they make something great. With kicktstarter, creatives have broke even before they have even got anywhere near finishing their product (or even started it). That results in 100% profit when it goes live, whatever the payment model is... even if what they make is pure junk. It's just wrong, all of it. Investors earn money for backing projects.. donators get nothing. It's an insult to the people backing a project.. they should be entitled to a share of the profits, just like an invester would be.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Trion also made a WoW clone something that for some reason investors like to get behind, the game was made to be favourable to a vast array of players to bring in alrge amounts of cash, CU isnt that game or with those games, its a game been made to please what could only be a handful of die-hard MMORPG PvP players and it will isolate players with some of its features, a game like rift with a major investor backing would not do.
I know what your thinking, why would investors only fund a game thats exactly the same as a game already out there and try to get in on an already competitive market...well i dont know...logic tells me that maybe if you take a risk and attempt to capitalise on an untouched market...you might get better results...
This statement was made 14 months ago and the players of the realm of Hibernia are tired of waiting. On April 12, 2003 there will be a formal sit-in protest on the Pendragon server of Dark Age of Camelot. This protest is to once again voice the concerns that make Hibernia feel, in Mark Jacobs words, like the "poor stepchild" of the game.
This protest will begin at 8pm eastern. Any wishing to involve themselves in this protest should come to the town of Mag Mell on Pendragon at 8pm eastern on April 12. Protestors will be invited to the guild "Hibernian Protest".
Your attempt to deny history...is denied. Any REAL fan of the game is willing to admit there was a massive mistake made on the part of Mystic with Hibernia, their being so weak for so long made RvR that much worse, the only people that deny that were those that needed a weak enemy to steamroll over.
We had more important things to moan about on the UK servers, namely GOA.
Any american players out there from Pendragon remember a 400 player strong hib guild that all quit on the same day, that must of really hurt, would have been basicily a 2 faction server?
MarkJacobsCEO City State EntertainmentMemberRarePosts: 649
Originally posted by jtcgs
Originally posted by Vannor
Originally posted by strangiato2112
Originally posted by Raagnarz
Originally posted by strangiato2112
A big name in the industry wanting to make a successor to one of the insutry's big names...and he is resorting to public funding?
It doesn't compute. If he wanted to make a low budget MMO he should have no problem securing funding, and the freedom to make the game he wanted to make.
But instead he is choosing to take advantage of the public, using the Camelot name to secure free capital he doesnt need to pay back. The whole thing seems off to me.
Just consider: If you use borrowed money, you have incentive to succeed. If you use free money, then it doesnt matter, you dont have to pay anyone back.
Kickstarter for a startup company of unknown developers is one thing. For a big name person developing a big name game though...It doesnt add up.
First Mark is a big name in game development history, but his new company is not. He is putting money into CU if the KS goal is hit. He is using KS to judge player interest. Think of it as a straw poll. If the public proves they want the game 60% or more of the total money will come from Mark and his other investors. If KS goal doesn't get reached then it will not be made because the public had shown there isn't enough interest.
Trion was able to get MAJOR funding for a startup company.
Its a backwards way of deciding to make a game or not. Of course there is massive demand for a successor to DAoC. He doesn't need kickstarter to determine that. Its if people are willing (or gullibe enough) to donate some risk free, free capital to him. If he cant get enough handouts, he wont make the game.
Its a major red flag. if he *really* wanted to make CU, he would make CU.
I agree with early post completely. Red flag.
As can be seen by my posts here I am not exactly on his side but...you guys are wrong.
As he said in his reply to me, DaoC had 250k people at its peak and its true.
But even if every single person that played DaoC wanted another(which isnt the case because I played it along with almost 350 of my guildmates who all quit near the same time for similar reasons and we dont want it back), 250k people wanting it is NOT A GREAT DEMAND in todays MMO market of over 20 million people...yes, there is that many if you factor in MMOs all over the world, there are a bunch of Asian MMOs with millions of people playing it.
The fact is, major companies dont want to invest in a DaoC sequal so he coudlnt get major backing for it...that is also the reason why the TES IP is being used by his former design partners for their DaoC game, because a major company required a POPULAR IP name over the unpopular DaoC name.
Anyway, I actually DO believe him when he says he is trying to prove something to the industry, I just think it may be more along the lines of trying to prove an old game design is still vialbe in a market that has evolved greatly over the years.
Ruh Roh, we agreed again. Dark Age of Camelot has a nice demand but you are totally right when you say that it doesn't have the overwhelming popularity of other game-based IP such as TES. Also, Dark Age never made it into the mainstream the way WoW (duh) and other game-based IP did so its value is not as high especially in today's market. It's not as low as some of course but it's not a home-run right now. We actually tried to get it made into a film back in the day but man, the direction that the writer/director wanted (it wasn't me, it was a major guy) didn't work for the studios.
As to the "old game design" well, as per my other message, let's just see if we don't have some surprises for you. Hopefully you'll believe this statement:
If I wanted to increase the popularity of CU and increase its chances of the KS to fund, I would be saying "It's a spiritual successor to Dark Age of Camelot and it has PvE!" and not what I am saying now.
The fact that I am saying the opposite, again and again, should I hope at least convince you that I am *trying* to do something different. Whether we agree on the direction or not of the game, I think it's fair to say that if I am secretely trying to prove "an old game design is still viable..." I'm certainly going about it in a crazy way.
Couldn't find the kickstarter page. Googled it and no luck at all. Kickstarter site sucks, TBH. But if someone provides a link, I might donate a little.
Originally posted by DavisFlight Publishers don't fund GOOD MMOs, they fund WoW clones.
True.
The Kickstarter doesn't start until March.
They can't find conventional funding because every time this formula has been tried it's been a financial failure. If your definition of good is a MMO that never made any money I suppose it's true.
I'm sorry, but what fantasy land do you live in?
It's the WoW clones that have all been huge flops. They usually flop so hard they take the company that made them with them. Two of Funcom's partners went bankrupt after Age of Conan flopped. SWTOR destroyed most of Bioware and Mythic, and crippled EA for a couple of months too.
The only MMOs that have done really well over the years, post WoW, are the ones that do unique things, with solid execution, then build on it. See: Eve, Darkfall. Those games have grown over time, while all WoW clones have died within weeks of launch.
Publishers don't know jack all about MMOs. Hence why we've been in an MMO dark age for almost 8 years now.
Darkfall was a dismal financial failure. EVE predates WoW by more than a year and is only a modest success despite having solid financial backing. It has about 400k subscribers. EVE also has a robust PvE community. To make a real comparison you need to look at games like Dark and light, Mourning Realms of Krel, Ryzom, Darkfall, Shadowbane, Mortal Online,and Xsyon. Soem of the WoW clones that failed did better than any of those, even the ones that went F2P.
I have no idea if this game will be successful but anyone that thinks people are lining up to throw huge sums of money at itwithout something to show investors is kidding themselves.
oh come on eve is a very sucessful mmo by any standards.
If eve isnt a sucessful mmo, the only sucessful mmo ever is WOW.
Trion also made a WoW clone something that for some reason investors like to get behind, the game was made to be favourable to a vast array of players to bring in alrge amounts of cash, CU isnt that game or with those games, its a game been made to please what could only be a handful of die-hard MMORPG PvP players and it will isolate players with some of its features, a game like rift with a major investor backing would not do.
I know what your thinking, why would investors only fund a game thats exactly the same as a game already out there and try to get in on an already competitive market...well i dont know...logic tells me that maybe if you take a risk and attempt to capitalise on an untouched market...you might get better results...
What WoW clone?
Its a good wow clone. but its a wow clone none the less.
I am sorry if it was mentioned in the thread already, but I haven't seen the answer.
How does Kickstarter work *if* the project does not reach its objective, does it reimburse the backers?
No funds are collected unless the goal has been met. There have been several projects that haven't met their goals recently. Xsyon comes to mind.
hmmm. Rather
No funds are collected untill the funding goal is met, once the funds have been collected however do not expect the return of your money. It will be spent to develop the game. In the event of that development failing you would fnd there where no funds to return, they will have been spent trying to develop the game.
See, we can agree on something! We might have to be careful, that could start a trend.
Seriously though, I know that a lot of what I'm saying might seem stuck in the past as you suggest with RK. I'm truly interested in hearing what you and others have to say on this. Let me explain a couple of things though:
1) As far as being a niche game, the reason I'm saying it is not because I want to make DAoC-lite but rather, because I do want to take chances as I've only talked about some of the ways we are going to do so because I am trying not to hype the game but also I want to do it slowly over the next six weeks. There is no way to go to a publisher today and say "I want to take risks with this game, I want money, control and no interference" in today's MMO market. Having DAoC as my #1 game and even with WAR's issues (which I have acknowledged time and again), publishers and investors are really leary of this space in the US. Asia is a different matter of course.
2) Doing an "average" game doesn't interest me, it really doesn't. I'm not trying to create this game just so I can relive my past but rather, try to approach the stories that I truly do love and do something different with them. I'm sort of between a rock and a hard place here in that people here have had enough hype from almost all, if not all, MMORPGs that have launched in the post-WoW era so I'm trying really hard just to give out my thoughts with any adjectives, without the hype and hoopla of WAR, Rift (remember Trion saying that they were going after WoW numbers), SWToR, etc. I'm surrounded by a bunch of mostly young, hard-core gamers and the ideas we are throwing around are not rehashes of other games but do contain lots of interesting concepts that we will talk about when appropriate. All I can say is what I have said again and again that I am not trying to make a DAoC-lite or even a DAoC 2. We talk about new approaches/mechanics all the time here and have been doing so for more than 6 months because that's the game we want to make.
As to Hibernia, well, I'll say something I have said before and that is for CU we will have the darn tools we need in place before the game launches so that some of the problems we had really knowing what was going on inside our game won't happen again.
Also, since you seem partially motivated by interest in this genre (if not this game yet), why don't you start a topic with your ideas for a game like CU. I am NOT being the least bit sarcastic with that statement, nor challenging, truly. I think you know me well enough that I could throw off some sarcastic remark (as I would have in the past possibly) but I am really interested in hearing what you have to say again, truly. I might not agree but I'm certainly willing to listen, especially now.
I do appreciate the feedback and the willingness to listen.
Mark
I am sure we can find a lot of things we agree on as we just plain LOVE games and I must say, it really is nice to see someone that listens. I had a massive bad taste left in my mouth after speakin with Raph Koster for only a few minutes during a closed Alpha session in SWG...a game I actually do defend once in a while (much like DaoC believe it or not). He was very closed minded and basically said that players need to be told what they liked...I am still shocked by that train of thought.
1. Understandable. MMOs are a major project and require a ton of cash. But as you point out, outside the US like in Asia its another story and I really do hope you keep that door open, South Korea has been pushing out some uniqe games of late and may very well be the place of opportunity for money to make a game thats risky. Black Desert comes to mind.
2. Hype, its been around almost since the beginning. While the Realm and Meridian 59 didnt have it, Ultima Online did, EverQuest did, Asherons Call didnt...Anarchy Online was trashed publiclly on the gaming forums right before release because Beta Testers were screaming about it not being ready(which release proved). So, its not hype we are sick of...its bland games. SWTOR would still be SWTOR without the hype it had. The game design did it.
Personally I say, just talk about it. As long as you talk about your game in a way that doesnt sound like it was written by a major poltiical speech writer, you are fine. Hype is you saying "PvP in Camelot Uhchained is going to be unlike anything ever experienced in the gamin world, it will revolutionize the genre!"...if you can avoid that, and speak like an actual person in actual conversation to another person, it isnt hype, and you should do it and not worry about it. Hell just doing what you are doing now, talking on a game forum to actual players goes a long way.
As for the last part...I have done so so many times...I have been in 3 games closed Alpha testing. The first was Asherons Call which I got into because I had beta tested a ton of Microsoft software in the mid 90s (the others were AC2 and SWG), Turbine was actually OPEN to their testers ideas and we actually had an impact on game features...since then however, after beta testing over 12 MMOs, that has since changed. In each I would offer up a ton of suggestions for implimentations or alterations only to go unheard, many of them turned out to be massive issues with players after release, others not so much.
You get to a point where it feels futile, that is where I am. Sometimes even when speaking to fellow gamers, you meet a wall of fanboys that act like everything is perfect and the very idea of suggesting an improvement to make the game even better, or viable to a larger audience, is blasphemy...
Anyway, I am by no means ignorant of the massive genre that is the MMO field and it is just plain not possible to make a game for everyone. if you focus on the PvP, you turn PvE players away. If you focus on PvE do you go for Raiders? Solo'ers? Small group players? A combo? What about Roleplayers? Do you give them the tools to roleplay? If you do, are you sacrificing too much programming time and let something that caters to a bigger crowd suffer? What about crafting? Its the same as the other, make a detailed crafting system and spend a lot of time on it so another part of the game gets less...or make a weak system and turn those players away...but if you do, then your economy can suffer for it which leads to even more decisions to make.
Its no small task, but its one that can only be tackled by a broad mind, the broader the mind the broader the game. Something the genre hasnt seen much of lately.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
A big name in the industry wanting to make a successor to one of the insutry's big names...and he is resorting to public funding?
It doesn't compute. If he wanted to make a low budget MMO he should have no problem securing funding, and the freedom to make the game he wanted to make.
But instead he is choosing to take advantage of the public, using the Camelot name to secure free capital he doesnt need to pay back. The whole thing seems off to me.
Just consider: If you use borrowed money, you have incentive to succeed. If you use free money, then it doesnt matter, you dont have to pay anyone back.
Kickstarter for a startup company of unknown developers is one thing. For a big name person developing a big name game though...It doesnt add up.
First Mark is a big name in game development history, but his new company is not. He is putting money into CU if the KS goal is hit. He is using KS to judge player interest. Think of it as a straw poll. If the public proves they want the game 60% or more of the total money will come from Mark and his other investors. If KS goal doesn't get reached then it will not be made because the public had shown there isn't enough interest.
Trion was able to get MAJOR funding for a startup company.
Its a backwards way of deciding to make a game or not. Of course there is massive demand for a successor to DAoC. He doesn't need kickstarter to determine that. Its if people are willing (or gullibe enough) to donate some risk free, free capital to him. If he cant get enough handouts, he wont make the game.
Its a major red flag. if he *really* wanted to make CU, he would make CU.
I agree with early post completely. Red flag.
As can be seen by my posts here I am not exactly on his side but...you guys are wrong.
As he said in his reply to me, DaoC had 250k people at its peak and its true.
But even if every single person that played DaoC wanted another(which isnt the case because I played it along with almost 350 of my guildmates who all quit near the same time for similar reasons and we dont want it back), 250k people wanting it is NOT A GREAT DEMAND in todays MMO market of over 20 million people...yes, there is that many if you factor in MMOs all over the world, there are a bunch of Asian MMOs with millions of people playing it.
The fact is, major companies dont want to invest in a DaoC sequal so he coudlnt get major backing for it...that is also the reason why the TES IP is being used by his former design partners for their DaoC game, because a major company required a POPULAR IP name over the unpopular DaoC name.
Anyway, I actually DO believe him when he says he is trying to prove something to the industry, I just think it may be more along the lines of trying to prove an old game design is still vialbe in a market that has evolved greatly over the years.
Ultimately, I don't agree with the kickstarter process as a whole for any creative project. It's turned the methods of a well established industry process on it's head. You make something great and then you get rewarded... but kickstarter is messing it all up.. people are getting rewarded before they make something great. With kicktstarter, creatives have broke even before they have even got anywhere near finishing their product (or even started it). That results in 100% profit when it goes live, whatever the payment model is... even if what they make is pure junk. It's just wrong, all of it. Investors earn money for backing projects.. donators get nothing. It's an insult to the people backing a project.. they should be entitled to a share of the profits, just like an invester would be.
Then don't use it. I know tons of creatives who have funded some awesome projects through KS that would never have seen the light of day. Because upfront costs are to high, most illustrators/designers I know don't have tons of disposable cash on hand to just get the upfront costs they need to start a project. They have the talent and the idea and even the audience but not the cash. KS helps them get thier project made. In the end the creatives get to make thier project while holding on to thier IP, the backers get to have the results of that project and everyone is happy.
Ultimately though why do you care what other people do if it doesn't effect you? If everyone involved is happy, that is ? Do you think the only people who should get to control what gets produced should be giant corporations who have the money to fund things? Is it better a corporation gets to decide what gets made or the consumers who actually want the products get to decide? Where will the inovation come from?
I don't think you even understand how KS works. You see donators do get something. On the KS's Ive been involved with they get the end product. It'smore like a presale. For larger donations they get extra perks. You don't want those extra frills don't donate at a higher tier. Most people I know break even on the deal.
As can be seen by my posts here I am not exactly on his side but...you guys are wrong.
As he said in his reply to me, DaoC had 250k people at its peak and its true.
But even if every single person that played DaoC wanted another(which isnt the case because I played it along with almost 350 of my guildmates who all quit near the same time for similar reasons and we dont want it back), 250k people wanting it is NOT A GREAT DEMAND in todays MMO market of over 20 million people...yes, there is that many if you factor in MMOs all over the world, there are a bunch of Asian MMOs with millions of people playing it.
The fact is, major companies dont want to invest in a DaoC sequal so he coudlnt get major backing for it...that is also the reason why the TES IP is being used by his former design partners for their DaoC game, because a major company required a POPULAR IP name over the unpopular DaoC name.
Anyway, I actually DO believe him when he says he is trying to prove something to the industry, I just think it may be more along the lines of trying to prove an old game design is still vialbe in a market that has evolved greatly over the years.
Ultimately, I don't agree with the kickstarter process as a whole for any creative project. It's turned the methods of a well established industry process on it's head. You make something great and then you get rewarded... but kickstarter is messing it all up.. people are getting rewarded before they make something great. With kicktstarter, creatives have broke even before they have even got anywhere near finishing their product (or even started it). That results in 100% profit when it goes live, whatever the payment model is... even if what they make is pure junk. It's just wrong, all of it. Investors earn money for backing projects.. donators get nothing. It's an insult to the people backing a project.. they should be entitled to a share of the profits, just like an invester would be.
umm...who cares about the established methods. Want to know what the difference is between kickstarter and the established industry?
A game is either funded by 1 place, or by 100,000. Either way, money is being used to make it. Hell, if they had kickstarter 6 years ago and I saw Mount and Blade up on it I would have donated $10,000 and asked if I could have a stake in the company...that game was just plain amazing for having been made by a few people as a hobby.
If a group of people have enough "new" ideas to really make a refreshing game but cant get any real backing than Kickstarter is a PERFECT IDEA...and to be honest, you are PARTLY right. Kickstarter should have a slight alteration made to it...if you donate a certain amount, you get a lifetime membership to the game you are donating to as a return on your investment.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
Firstly, Mark: Thanks for adding paragraphs. Your posts are now much easier to read
Now jtcgs: Whilst I haven't been in any alphas and not as many betas I totally agree that at least beta 'testing' has become a complete waste of time for anything other than marketing. Which it sucks at as, no matter how many times you tell people they are playing an un-finished product, they always expect perfection.
Certainly during the WAR beta the testers were basically ignored. Problems were brought to the devs attention (or posted on the forums at least) and nothing was done about them at all.
On the subject of the WAR beta: WAR had, to me, a very odd beta. It was all focus tests. This week test levels 30-40, PvP only. This week test levels 1-10, PvE only. Now test levels 40+.
Whilst focus testing can give some good data, you also need testers to be able to test the entire game as though it were live. By jumping focus tests all over the level ranges it is very hard for testers to get a feel for how things scale with level. The lack of solid couple of months of "Here's the complete game. Test the shit out of it!" really hurt the final product.
I need the Kickstarter to fund to prove to the other investors (and to myself) that I'm not just this grumpy old game guy who thinks he has a good idea but nobody wants to play the game but a few other old school gamers. Our KS will be the proof of interest from our target market.
Mark
This basically proves what I replied.
Mark you probably should not be on here discussing your game, no offense. You are going to get quoted all over the place . Plus, people will read into it. Myself, when I see a lead dev in a place like this it makes me think the guy is going to be playing the game and picking favorites.
Do you guys really want ALL games to do this?
Mark (hah funny pun) my words, this will be the new way for investors to test potential game ideas. The whole new proof of concept (a saying Darkfall's AV likes to toss around). Plus, free starting capital.
I don't mind being quoted. Sometimes I say something that I wish I hadn't but that goes with the territory. As far as that quote, it's accurate. I've been giping about what was going to happen in the MMO space for the last 7years to EA, analysts, etc. Sometimes I was listened to, sometimes I was not and when I wasn't and things then went the way I said they would, well, grumpiness ensued.
As to Kickstarter, the best thing about KS is that it does free game developers to make the game their fans want and not the game the publishers want. Sometimes the publishers can be very smart, sometimes not but at least this way the fans get the game they wanted *if* the developers come through. That's one of the reasons I'm spending so much time talking about the game and not just doing interviews. I want our potential backers to know exactly what game I will make.
Now, could Kickstarter turn out to be a flash in the pan, yep, if game developers don't come through, it will kill crowd funding for big projects and that would be a real shame. KS has the potential to put more power in the hands of developers and players than ever before. Now we as an industry have to not mess it up. But here's why I'm excited for crowd funding no matter what happens with CU:
Developers can use CF to not only gauge interest but more importantly, use it as leverage for distribution, partnering, licensing etc. deals as well as saying to a publisher "Well, you might want to own the IP but we'll take this game to CF so..." The industry is in a real bad place right now in terms of the balance of power. Publishers have gotten quite demanding (more so than any other time I remember) about IP ownership even when it's a distribution deal (which used to be almost unheard of in the past) and *if* game developers can use KS to create successful games, there will be a shift back to a fairer sharing of ownership (or none).
I'm not saying this to convince anybody to back our game because frankly, I think most people here already made their minds up here. What I am still doing here is just talking to players and getting their feedback for CU. As to what I'm saying about KS, well, watch what happens with it over the next few years. If guys like Obsidian, Chris Roberts, etc. deliver on their games, things will really change for the better for players and developers alike. If developers can't deliver the goods, well, CF will no longer be viable for developers and publishers will hold all the cards. It will be interesting to watch.
It seems Devs are trying lots of things these days. There is not only this but Steam's greenlight is being used as well. That appears to be AV's (Darkfall) tactic. They do not appear to be listening well at all to their loyal player base and used the time/money that base paid to develop a game aimed at others.
But I have seen that happen to many times to believe a dev team. I remember Horizon back in the day appeal to people looking for money.
EA's Madden dev team slipped out of the official forums and basically took over Operationsports.com. I don't know what the deal is there but EA basically said what goes on. Ian Cummings started having some good interactions with the community but almost everything that came out of it was incomplete/bugged and hyped up by a advertising machine. EA hired one of the community members to help develop the game and here is what he had to say about it:
I personally spent a lot of time trying to get that game to turn around and saw one of my ideas put into the game. While that was cool one thing doesn't make a game good when overall the fans of the game find SOO many bugs withing the first day it is just amazing to me. I don't think that game even will turn around until the exclusive deal is over. I remember when games came out in a pretty good state. Now it just seems like the goal is to prehype it, over market it, get it out the door with hopes to patch in things that should have been done in before the product was sold.
As to those that hold hope in this sort of things well, more power to them I guess. But I don't beleive any dev team until I am playing a game I enjoy. People are giving their money away way to freely and that is a large part of the problem I think. If the games had to be really good to sell then game quality would go up. So, until people don't give any money until they KNOW a game is great it won't change. Until then its just get the product out the door and collect the paycheck.
On the subject of the WAR beta: WAR had, to me, a very odd beta. It was all focus tests. This week test levels 30-40, PvP only. This week test levels 1-10, PvE only. Now test levels 40+.
Whilst focus testing can give some good data, you also need testers to be able to test the entire game as though it were live. By jumping focus tests all over the level ranges it is very hard for testers to get a feel for how things scale with level. The lack of solid couple of months of "Here's the complete game. Test the shit out of it!" really hurt the final product.
Sorry, got detracted there...
FYI, focus testing actually IS very important and when I was testing Warhammer I was hoping that they had split the testers up so that one bunch was focus testing one area while another was testing others. Most other beta tests had the full game beta tested while groups of known good testers were given areas to focus on with the in house testers.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
A big name in the industry wanting to make a successor to one of the insutry's big names...and he is resorting to public funding?
It doesn't compute. If he wanted to make a low budget MMO he should have no problem securing funding, and the freedom to make the game he wanted to make.
But instead he is choosing to take advantage of the public, using the Camelot name to secure free capital he doesnt need to pay back. The whole thing seems off to me.
Just consider: If you use borrowed money, you have incentive to succeed. If you use free money, then it doesnt matter, you dont have to pay anyone back.
Kickstarter for a startup company of unknown developers is one thing. For a big name person developing a big name game though...It doesnt add up.
Of course it adds up.
What it adds up to is his inablity to raise venture capital for this proposal. The capital market, which is more than a little tight at the moment, did not like the ratio between risk and gain. They do not expect the game to make a huge amount of profit and see some risk (maybe a little maybe a lot) of loosing money on the deal. Result not enough investors.
Therefore kickstarter or nothing.
So investors dont have confidence in Mark. Why should consumers then?
If he isnt competent to secure funding for a project like this, he almost certainly isnt competent enough to run a team to develop this.
Marketing and development are two very different things...
Comments
I don't mind being quoted. Sometimes I say something that I wish I hadn't but that goes with the territory. As far as that quote, it's accurate. I've been giping about what was going to happen in the MMO space for the last 7years to EA, analysts, etc. Sometimes I was listened to, sometimes I was not and when I wasn't and things then went the way I said they would, well, grumpiness ensued.
As to Kickstarter, the best thing about KS is that it does free game developers to make the game their fans want and not the game the publishers want. Sometimes the publishers can be very smart, sometimes not but at least this way the fans get the game they wanted *if* the developers come through. That's one of the reasons I'm spending so much time talking about the game and not just doing interviews. I want our potential backers to know exactly what game I will make.
Now, could Kickstarter turn out to be a flash in the pan, yep, if game developers don't come through, it will kill crowd funding for big projects and that would be a real shame. KS has the potential to put more power in the hands of developers and players than ever before. Now we as an industry have to not mess it up. But here's why I'm excited for crowd funding no matter what happens with CU:
Developers can use CF to not only gauge interest but more importantly, use it as leverage for distribution, partnering, licensing etc. deals as well as saying to a publisher "Well, you might want to own the IP but we'll take this game to CF so..." The industry is in a real bad place right now in terms of the balance of power. Publishers have gotten quite demanding (more so than any other time I remember) about IP ownership even when it's a distribution deal (which used to be almost unheard of in the past) and *if* game developers can use KS to create successful games, there will be a shift back to a fairer sharing of ownership (or none).
I'm not saying this to convince anybody to back our game because frankly, I think most people here already made their minds up here. What I am still doing here is just talking to players and getting their feedback for CU. As to what I'm saying about KS, well, watch what happens with it over the next few years. If guys like Obsidian, Chris Roberts, etc. deliver on their games, things will really change for the better for players and developers alike. If developers can't deliver the goods, well, CF will no longer be viable for developers and publishers will hold all the cards. It will be interesting to watch.
Mark Jacobs
CEO, City State Entertainment
I'm sorry, but what fantasy land do you live in?
It's the WoW clones that have all been huge flops. They usually flop so hard they take the company that made them with them. Two of Funcom's partners went bankrupt after Age of Conan flopped. SWTOR destroyed most of Bioware and Mythic, and crippled EA for a couple of months too.
The only MMOs that have done really well over the years, post WoW, are the ones that do unique things, with solid execution, then build on it. See: Eve, Darkfall. Those games have grown over time, while all WoW clones have died within weeks of launch.
Publishers don't know jack all about MMOs. Hence why we've been in an MMO dark age for almost 8 years now.
I am sorry if it was mentioned in the thread already, but I haven't seen the answer.
How does Kickstarter work *if* the project does not reach its objective, does it reimburse the backers?
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You know, you are correct. I thought they topped 750k at its peak. Development time however matters little as your Hibernia players will attest to your taking a year to start to actually notice them, and even more time to act on their protests. Again, if you would just open your mind to the flaws of the past the industry will embrace you, Koster was very unwilling and its been 5 years trying to get backing for his start-up company...which is still waiting.
We want desginers that evolve, not ones stuck in the past. We already know we can play games outside the box of closed off factions at war. time to throw that box away and UNLEASH your games and give them more freedom.
One can only imagine what DaoC would have been like with a real war not boxed into closed PvP areas when we know (now admittedly) that if you make PvP optional, make town/quest NPCs non-attackable, you remove all the reasons to keep PvP boxed in and still can provide PvP areas like DaoC had that give objectives and bonuses to the controlling side. I am not a WoW fan, but lets admit it, if they had created more open world obectives, they would have had a near perfect system because Vanilla WoW where people were attacking the main cities WAS FUN AS HELL, but you can preserve PvE by making quest NPCs unattackable so those not wanting to take part can still play as they want.
You have some good ideas, so do many others...its the restrictions you place on your games and the things you leave out of them that make a game fail, fall into a niche, become average or a great success. Be a success, I would much rather see you succeed now, than fail...but all I have read so far is...stuck in the past.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
I agree with early post completely. Red flag.
I played hibernia. we were pretty much always the middle faction, its midgard that occasionally lacked numbers.
again your knowledge from daoc with your "400 man guild that all quit on the same day" never ceases to amaze me.
p.s you were probably playing swg at the time.
p.p.s CU has nothing to do with TESO not having enough wookies and lightsabers for your liking. they are games being built by 2 separate studios where the project leads happened to work together once.
p.p.p.s maybe you should start your own kickstarter for "stellar body battles universe" instead of bitching about games you have no intention of ever playing.
Unless your lucky enough to work for a great publisher like valve or zenimax its probably a damn site more fun working as an independent. I know from experience many years ago when Sony bought the company I worked for and made all sorts of silly decisions from on high, like relocating to London which caused many of us to walk as we weren't going to pay triple the mortgage for moving south. Smaller companies work better as there are less layers of management and the bosses are closer to what is really going on.
As can be seen by my posts here I am not exactly on his side but...you guys are wrong.
As he said in his reply to me, DaoC had 250k people at its peak and its true.
But even if every single person that played DaoC wanted another(which isnt the case because I played it along with almost 350 of my guildmates who all quit near the same time for similar reasons and we dont want it back), 250k people wanting it is NOT A GREAT DEMAND in todays MMO market of over 20 million people...yes, there is that many if you factor in MMOs all over the world, there are a bunch of Asian MMOs with millions of people playing it.
The fact is, major companies dont want to invest in a DaoC sequal so he coudlnt get major backing for it...that is also the reason why the TES IP is being used by his former design partners for their DaoC game, because a major company required a POPULAR IP name over the unpopular DaoC name.
Anyway, I actually DO believe him when he says he is trying to prove something to the industry, I just think it may be more along the lines of trying to prove an old game design is still vialbe in a market that has evolved greatly over the years.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
See, we can agree on something! We might have to be careful, that could start a trend.
Seriously though, I know that a lot of what I'm saying might seem stuck in the past as you suggest with RK. I'm truly interested in hearing what you and others have to say on this. Let me explain a couple of things though:
1) As far as being a niche game, the reason I'm saying it is not because I want to make DAoC-lite but rather, because I do want to take chances as I've only talked about some of the ways we are going to do so because I am trying not to hype the game but also I want to do it slowly over the next six weeks. There is no way to go to a publisher today and say "I want to take risks with this game, I want money, control and no interference" in today's MMO market. Having DAoC as my #1 game and even with WAR's issues (which I have acknowledged time and again), publishers and investors are really leary of this space in the US. Asia is a different matter of course.
2) Doing an "average" game doesn't interest me, it really doesn't. I'm not trying to create this game just so I can relive my past but rather, try to approach the stories that I truly do love and do something different with them. I'm sort of between a rock and a hard place here in that people here have had enough hype from almost all, if not all, MMORPGs that have launched in the post-WoW era so I'm trying really hard just to give out my thoughts with any adjectives, without the hype and hoopla of WAR, Rift (remember Trion saying that they were going after WoW numbers), SWToR, etc. I'm surrounded by a bunch of mostly young, hard-core gamers and the ideas we are throwing around are not rehashes of other games but do contain lots of interesting concepts that we will talk about when appropriate. All I can say is what I have said again and again that I am not trying to make a DAoC-lite or even a DAoC 2. We talk about new approaches/mechanics all the time here and have been doing so for more than 6 months because that's the game we want to make.
As to Hibernia, well, I'll say something I have said before and that is for CU we will have the darn tools we need in place before the game launches so that some of the problems we had really knowing what was going on inside our game won't happen again.
Also, since you seem partially motivated by interest in this genre (if not this game yet), why don't you start a topic with your ideas for a game like CU. I am NOT being the least bit sarcastic with that statement, nor challenging, truly. I think you know me well enough that I could throw off some sarcastic remark (as I would have in the past possibly) but I am really interested in hearing what you have to say again, truly. I might not agree but I'm certainly willing to listen, especially now.
I do appreciate the feedback and the willingness to listen.
Mark
Mark Jacobs
CEO, City State Entertainment
So are you being paid to do this? Cause you do it with fervor
http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/hibernia-still-waiting-for-their-first-turn.452392786/page-5
This statement was made 14 months ago and the players of the realm of Hibernia are tired of waiting. On April 12, 2003 there will be a formal sit-in protest on the Pendragon server of Dark Age of Camelot. This protest is to once again voice the concerns that make Hibernia feel, in Mark Jacobs words, like the "poor stepchild" of the game.
This protest will begin at 8pm eastern. Any wishing to involve themselves in this protest should come to the town of Mag Mell on Pendragon at 8pm eastern on April 12. Protestors will be invited to the guild "Hibernian Protest".
Your attempt to deny history...is denied. Any REAL fan of the game is willing to admit there was a massive mistake made on the part of Mystic with Hibernia, their being so weak for so long made RvR that much worse, the only people that deny that were those that needed a weak enemy to steamroll over.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
Ultimately, I don't agree with the kickstarter process as a whole for any creative project. It's turned the methods of a well established industry process on it's head. You make something great and then you get rewarded... but kickstarter is messing it all up.. people are getting rewarded before they make something great. With kicktstarter, creatives have broke even before they have even got anywhere near finishing their product (or even started it). That results in 100% profit when it goes live, whatever the payment model is... even if what they make is pure junk. It's just wrong, all of it. Investors earn money for backing projects.. donators get nothing. It's an insult to the people backing a project.. they should be entitled to a share of the profits, just like an invester would be.
What WoW clone?
We had more important things to moan about on the UK servers, namely GOA.
Any american players out there from Pendragon remember a 400 player strong hib guild that all quit on the same day, that must of really hurt, would have been basicily a 2 faction server?
Ruh Roh, we agreed again. Dark Age of Camelot has a nice demand but you are totally right when you say that it doesn't have the overwhelming popularity of other game-based IP such as TES. Also, Dark Age never made it into the mainstream the way WoW (duh) and other game-based IP did so its value is not as high especially in today's market. It's not as low as some of course but it's not a home-run right now. We actually tried to get it made into a film back in the day but man, the direction that the writer/director wanted (it wasn't me, it was a major guy) didn't work for the studios.
As to the "old game design" well, as per my other message, let's just see if we don't have some surprises for you. Hopefully you'll believe this statement:
If I wanted to increase the popularity of CU and increase its chances of the KS to fund, I would be saying "It's a spiritual successor to Dark Age of Camelot and it has PvE!" and not what I am saying now.
The fact that I am saying the opposite, again and again, should I hope at least convince you that I am *trying* to do something different. Whether we agree on the direction or not of the game, I think it's fair to say that if I am secretely trying to prove "an old game design is still viable..." I'm certainly going about it in a crazy way.
Time to get back to levels.
Mark Jacobs
CEO, City State Entertainment
oh come on eve is a very sucessful mmo by any standards.
If eve isnt a sucessful mmo, the only sucessful mmo ever is WOW.
Its a good wow clone. but its a wow clone none the less.
hmmm. Rather
No funds are collected untill the funding goal is met, once the funds have been collected however do not expect the return of your money. It will be spent to develop the game. In the event of that development failing you would fnd there where no funds to return, they will have been spent trying to develop the game.
I am sure we can find a lot of things we agree on as we just plain LOVE games and I must say, it really is nice to see someone that listens. I had a massive bad taste left in my mouth after speakin with Raph Koster for only a few minutes during a closed Alpha session in SWG...a game I actually do defend once in a while (much like DaoC believe it or not). He was very closed minded and basically said that players need to be told what they liked...I am still shocked by that train of thought.
1. Understandable. MMOs are a major project and require a ton of cash. But as you point out, outside the US like in Asia its another story and I really do hope you keep that door open, South Korea has been pushing out some uniqe games of late and may very well be the place of opportunity for money to make a game thats risky. Black Desert comes to mind.
2. Hype, its been around almost since the beginning. While the Realm and Meridian 59 didnt have it, Ultima Online did, EverQuest did, Asherons Call didnt...Anarchy Online was trashed publiclly on the gaming forums right before release because Beta Testers were screaming about it not being ready(which release proved). So, its not hype we are sick of...its bland games. SWTOR would still be SWTOR without the hype it had. The game design did it.
Personally I say, just talk about it. As long as you talk about your game in a way that doesnt sound like it was written by a major poltiical speech writer, you are fine. Hype is you saying "PvP in Camelot Uhchained is going to be unlike anything ever experienced in the gamin world, it will revolutionize the genre!"...if you can avoid that, and speak like an actual person in actual conversation to another person, it isnt hype, and you should do it and not worry about it. Hell just doing what you are doing now, talking on a game forum to actual players goes a long way.
As for the last part...I have done so so many times...I have been in 3 games closed Alpha testing. The first was Asherons Call which I got into because I had beta tested a ton of Microsoft software in the mid 90s (the others were AC2 and SWG), Turbine was actually OPEN to their testers ideas and we actually had an impact on game features...since then however, after beta testing over 12 MMOs, that has since changed. In each I would offer up a ton of suggestions for implimentations or alterations only to go unheard, many of them turned out to be massive issues with players after release, others not so much.
You get to a point where it feels futile, that is where I am. Sometimes even when speaking to fellow gamers, you meet a wall of fanboys that act like everything is perfect and the very idea of suggesting an improvement to make the game even better, or viable to a larger audience, is blasphemy...
Anyway, I am by no means ignorant of the massive genre that is the MMO field and it is just plain not possible to make a game for everyone. if you focus on the PvP, you turn PvE players away. If you focus on PvE do you go for Raiders? Solo'ers? Small group players? A combo? What about Roleplayers? Do you give them the tools to roleplay? If you do, are you sacrificing too much programming time and let something that caters to a bigger crowd suffer? What about crafting? Its the same as the other, make a detailed crafting system and spend a lot of time on it so another part of the game gets less...or make a weak system and turn those players away...but if you do, then your economy can suffer for it which leads to even more decisions to make.
Its no small task, but its one that can only be tackled by a broad mind, the broader the mind the broader the game. Something the genre hasnt seen much of lately.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
Then don't use it. I know tons of creatives who have funded some awesome projects through KS that would never have seen the light of day. Because upfront costs are to high, most illustrators/designers I know don't have tons of disposable cash on hand to just get the upfront costs they need to start a project. They have the talent and the idea and even the audience but not the cash. KS helps them get thier project made. In the end the creatives get to make thier project while holding on to thier IP, the backers get to have the results of that project and everyone is happy.
Ultimately though why do you care what other people do if it doesn't effect you? If everyone involved is happy, that is ? Do you think the only people who should get to control what gets produced should be giant corporations who have the money to fund things? Is it better a corporation gets to decide what gets made or the consumers who actually want the products get to decide? Where will the inovation come from?
I don't think you even understand how KS works. You see donators do get something. On the KS's Ive been involved with they get the end product. It'smore like a presale. For larger donations they get extra perks. You don't want those extra frills don't donate at a higher tier. Most people I know break even on the deal.
umm...who cares about the established methods. Want to know what the difference is between kickstarter and the established industry?
A game is either funded by 1 place, or by 100,000. Either way, money is being used to make it. Hell, if they had kickstarter 6 years ago and I saw Mount and Blade up on it I would have donated $10,000 and asked if I could have a stake in the company...that game was just plain amazing for having been made by a few people as a hobby.
If a group of people have enough "new" ideas to really make a refreshing game but cant get any real backing than Kickstarter is a PERFECT IDEA...and to be honest, you are PARTLY right. Kickstarter should have a slight alteration made to it...if you donate a certain amount, you get a lifetime membership to the game you are donating to as a return on your investment.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
Firstly, Mark: Thanks for adding paragraphs. Your posts are now much easier to read
Now jtcgs: Whilst I haven't been in any alphas and not as many betas I totally agree that at least beta 'testing' has become a complete waste of time for anything other than marketing. Which it sucks at as, no matter how many times you tell people they are playing an un-finished product, they always expect perfection.
Certainly during the WAR beta the testers were basically ignored. Problems were brought to the devs attention (or posted on the forums at least) and nothing was done about them at all.
On the subject of the WAR beta: WAR had, to me, a very odd beta. It was all focus tests. This week test levels 30-40, PvP only. This week test levels 1-10, PvE only. Now test levels 40+.
Whilst focus testing can give some good data, you also need testers to be able to test the entire game as though it were live. By jumping focus tests all over the level ranges it is very hard for testers to get a feel for how things scale with level. The lack of solid couple of months of "Here's the complete game. Test the shit out of it!" really hurt the final product.
Sorry, got detracted there...
It seems Devs are trying lots of things these days. There is not only this but Steam's greenlight is being used as well. That appears to be AV's (Darkfall) tactic. They do not appear to be listening well at all to their loyal player base and used the time/money that base paid to develop a game aimed at others.
But I have seen that happen to many times to believe a dev team. I remember Horizon back in the day appeal to people looking for money.
EA's Madden dev team slipped out of the official forums and basically took over Operationsports.com. I don't know what the deal is there but EA basically said what goes on. Ian Cummings started having some good interactions with the community but almost everything that came out of it was incomplete/bugged and hyped up by a advertising machine. EA hired one of the community members to help develop the game and here is what he had to say about it:
http://www.pastapadre.com/2012/12/03/former-madden-developer-speaks-out-regarding-frustrations-and-disappointments
I personally spent a lot of time trying to get that game to turn around and saw one of my ideas put into the game. While that was cool one thing doesn't make a game good when overall the fans of the game find SOO many bugs withing the first day it is just amazing to me. I don't think that game even will turn around until the exclusive deal is over. I remember when games came out in a pretty good state. Now it just seems like the goal is to prehype it, over market it, get it out the door with hopes to patch in things that should have been done in before the product was sold.
As to those that hold hope in this sort of things well, more power to them I guess. But I don't beleive any dev team until I am playing a game I enjoy. People are giving their money away way to freely and that is a large part of the problem I think. If the games had to be really good to sell then game quality would go up. So, until people don't give any money until they KNOW a game is great it won't change. Until then its just get the product out the door and collect the paycheck.
FYI, focus testing actually IS very important and when I was testing Warhammer I was hoping that they had split the testers up so that one bunch was focus testing one area while another was testing others. Most other beta tests had the full game beta tested while groups of known good testers were given areas to focus on with the in house testers.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
However in DAoC's prime 250k was a great demand. The market is SIGNIFICANTLY bigger, youd have to adjust that 250k upward.
And even if it was 250k, where would that place it?
MMOs with over 250k subs in the west:
WoW
EvE
thats it.
Counting freemium models and b2p you can add GW2, SWToR and probably LOTRO. And thats it.
Games that have had sustained periods of 250k western subs:
WoW
EQ
EVE
SWG (maybe)
DAoC
So just how bad is that 250k number really?
DAoC is one of the most successful MMORPGs in history. By any era's standards.
Marketing and development are two very different things...
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