2. What's the power gaps between levels, percentage wise? And how many levels will there be in the first (chapter, was it?), and ultimately?
3. I don't understand how you will be handling group quests/story lines in an open world without instances. Lets say I'm already in a place where another group has a "point B" in their quest, they come in and supposedly have content for their story, what will I see and what will I be able to interact with? Will a BOSS pop in for them? Will I be able to help them? What happens to my normal content in the meantime? How's this work?
4. You call this a Sandbox. But I have a feeling that players will be restricted to content based on their levels to quite an extent, and that wouldn't actually be a Sandbox world. That's not bad, just bad for me, lol. Can you address this?
Open world multiplayer survival builder JRPG chibi group based grinder MMO with full open pvp, destructible enviroments and ship combat? All while being made by no major studio, with no marketing, streaming, youtube, or cash shops. Also must be completed in a timely manner (3-5 years).
Open world multiplayer survival builder JRPG chibi group based grinder MMO with full open pvp, destructible enviroments and ship combat? All while being made by no major studio, with no marketing, streaming, youtube, or cash shops. Also must be completed in a timely manner (3-5 years).
Open world multiplayer survival builder JRPG chibi group based grinder MMO with full open pvp, destructible enviroments and ship combat? All while being made by no major studio, with no marketing, streaming, youtube, or cash shops. Also must be completed in a timely manner (3-5 years).
I'm sure it's in the pipeline somewhere!
Yes, in Wizardry own universe.
Ironically the closest thing to what he described is Star Citizen. LOL
Perhaps if you re-branded as a singleplayer console game it might help?
Coming Soon: The Saga of Lucimia ARPG, for PS4/Xbox. Season passes, cosmetic shop, you name it!
Or just release a BR stand alone game with the engine paid for by the funders. Just make sure you have the apologies at the ready, and you’ll be fine...
Open world multiplayer survival builder JRPG chibi group based grinder MMO with full open pvp, destructible enviroments and ship combat? All while being made by no major studio, with no marketing, streaming, youtube, or cash shops. Also must be completed in a timely manner (3-5 years).
I'm sure it's in the pipeline somewhere!
Yes, in Wizardry own universe.
Unfortunately for him the Wonderful World of Wizardry is pure theme park.
2. What's the power gaps between levels, percentage wise? And how many levels will there be in the first (chapter, was it?), and ultimately?
3. I don't understand how you will be handling group quests/story lines in an open world without instances. Lets say I'm already in a place where another group has a "point B" in their quest, they come in and supposedly have content for their story, what will I see and what will I be able to interact with? Will a BOSS pop in for them? Will I be able to help them? What happens to my normal content in the meantime? How's this work?
4. You call this a Sandbox. But I have a feeling that players will be restricted to content based on their levels to quite an extent, and that wouldn't actually be a Sandbox world. That's not bad, just bad for me, lol. Can you address this?
#1: Nope. It was never first person. We just didn't have third-person POV in for the first couple of years of pre alpha as it wasn't a priority and we wanted to play around with first person POV first from a design standpoint.
The myth of us being first-person only was fake news, despite us even having a blog post talking about our plans for third-person even back when we were still doing first person testing. Which was more than three years ago.
#2: There are no levels. There are no experience points. Instead, there are skills and skill lines called masteries. https://sagaoflucimia.com/game/faq
#3 & #4: Refer back to early EQ, early EQ2, and Vanguard for how games operate in non-instanced environments.
The book was pretty good, so I expect whatever story lines/quests in the game to be worth the pause to read.
Considering how much this site begs for old style MMOs, that lack PvP... I makes sense that it would be reasonable for it to be hyped up.
Glad you enjoyed the book.
I'm writing 90% of the quest dialogue in the game (and editing the other 10% that John is writing), and my goal is to maintain the same style throughout. It's a little tricker since I've had to learn markup and that can kind of take you out of the flow of things sometimes, but at the end of the day it's whatever it takes to get the storyline into the game
That's one of the things we're testing this upcoming build, actually, in April; the first iteration of the *actual* primary storyline. Up until this point we've only ever tested throwaway content.
2. What's the power gaps between levels, percentage wise? And how many levels will there be in the first (chapter, was it?), and ultimately?
3. I don't understand how you will be handling group quests/story lines in an open world without instances. Lets say I'm already in a place where another group has a "point B" in their quest, they come in and supposedly have content for their story, what will I see and what will I be able to interact with? Will a BOSS pop in for them? Will I be able to help them? What happens to my normal content in the meantime? How's this work?
4. You call this a Sandbox. But I have a feeling that players will be restricted to content based on their levels to quite an extent, and that wouldn't actually be a Sandbox world. That's not bad, just bad for me, lol. Can you address this?
#1: Nope. It was never first person. We just didn't have third-person POV in for the first couple of years of pre alpha as it wasn't a priority and we wanted to play around with first person POV first from a design standpoint.
The myth of us being first-person only was fake news, despite us even having a blog post talking about our plans for third-person even back when we were still doing first person testing. Which was more than three years ago.
#2: There are no levels. There are no experience points. Instead, there are skills and skill lines called masteries. https://sagaoflucimia.com/game/faq
#3 & #4: Refer back to early EQ, early EQ2, and Vanguard for how games operate in non-instanced environments.
Ok, so big power gaps, and not really a Sandbox game. But you must have a reason to call it "Sandbox", and that leaves me wondering what that is. Are you having lots of worldly interaction? That's "levers on steroids". Makeshift battering rams? Breaking down stone doors? Releasing water to drain pools? Stacking objects to climb? What's your thinking here?
This doesn't sound like a game I want. But there's a lot of gamers out there with all kinds of ideals. Good luck.
wow so only the 10 players who play teh game voted on it? never heard of it btw, even less when they made the votes
One of the devs posts here quite often and there have been plenty of news articles on it.
Console playing casuals and BR lovers aren't very likely to follow this game, I'm sure for most their eyes glaze over when mention is made of the group centric, cooperative design.
Mentioning the word "challenge" is often a non starter as well.
You and slap are going awfully easy on this one.
? Maybe none of the people under the bridge thought it right to even donate
wow so only the 10 players who play teh game voted on it? never heard of it btw, even less when they made the votes
One of the devs posts here quite often and there have been plenty of news articles on it.
Console playing casuals and BR lovers aren't very likely to follow this game, I'm sure for most their eyes glaze over when mention is made of the group centric, cooperative design.
Mentioning the word "challenge" is often a non starter as well.
You and slap are going awfully easy on this one.
? Maybe none of the people under the bridge thought it right to even donate
Unlike every other indie KSer lead, Renfail never over promised or under delivered.
From day one they told people not to donate unless they were comfortable with the fact there was no promised delivery date or this was being delivered by a team whose founders had no actual game development experience.
They let their backers into their very early builds making no apologies for its roughness and honestly took their feedback to heart in refining the game's design.
I recall challenging Renfail a few years ago on whether they could really pull this off.
He never went into a rage over anyone daring to question his vision, or spouted off about their amazing technology or gannt charts which were going to make the magic happen in just two short years.
Renfail just stated what they had done so far, planned to do, and again asked I not pledge unless fully comfortable with what I saw.
He will vigorously defend the game, their vision, progress to date or lack thereof while always keeping his composure, never getting butthurt by critics comments or openly showing any anger towards others, not even douchy acting old trolls who live under the bridge.
He never, ever throws his team under a bus for any reason, but is quick to praise them when warranted.
Strangest thing of all is, unlike Mark, Jeremy or Stephen (who all fail fabulously in the above areas BTW) who came to this site with hat in hand begging for money, but now all ghost it he still comes back to interact with us here in these forums, go figure.
They miraculously found a backer a year or so ago (unlike some other efforts) and get this, pulled down their pre-order page and stopped actively soliciting backers for money? I mean what developerdoes such a thing? One with some integrity I guess.
This is a game I have very little interest in playing but I'll probably one day toss in some money just to give it try and to support its development.
I mean hey, it's a game created by (former) armchair developers like myself, how could I not look favorably when it appears they might not only pull it off, but beat some of the "big" names to the finish line.
Besides, even @delete5230 likes this game, you just know it has to be good.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
2. What's the power gaps between levels, percentage wise? And how many levels will there be in the first (chapter, was it?), and ultimately?
3. I don't understand how you will be handling group quests/story lines in an open world without instances. Lets say I'm already in a place where another group has a "point B" in their quest, they come in and supposedly have content for their story, what will I see and what will I be able to interact with? Will a BOSS pop in for them? Will I be able to help them? What happens to my normal content in the meantime? How's this work?
4. You call this a Sandbox. But I have a feeling that players will be restricted to content based on their levels to quite an extent, and that wouldn't actually be a Sandbox world. That's not bad, just bad for me, lol. Can you address this?
#1: Nope. It was never first person. We just didn't have third-person POV in for the first couple of years of pre alpha as it wasn't a priority and we wanted to play around with first person POV first from a design standpoint.
The myth of us being first-person only was fake news, despite us even having a blog post talking about our plans for third-person even back when we were still doing first person testing. Which was more than three years ago.
#2: There are no levels. There are no experience points. Instead, there are skills and skill lines called masteries. https://sagaoflucimia.com/game/faq
#3 & #4: Refer back to early EQ, early EQ2, and Vanguard for how games operate in non-instanced environments.
Ok, so big power gaps, and not really a Sandbox game. But you must have a reason to call it "Sandbox", and that leaves me wondering what that is. Are you having lots of worldly interaction? That's "levers on steroids". Makeshift battering rams? Breaking down stone doors? Releasing water to drain pools? Stacking objects to climb? What's your thinking here?
This doesn't sound like a game I want. But there's a lot of gamers out there with all kinds of ideals. Good luck.
Clearly, you've not read anything about our game, nor even bothered to read the aformentioned FAQ page.
wow so only the 10 players who play teh game voted on it? never heard of it btw, even less when they made the votes
One of the devs posts here quite often and there have been plenty of news articles on it.
Console playing casuals and BR lovers aren't very likely to follow this game, I'm sure for most their eyes glaze over when mention is made of the group centric, cooperative design.
Mentioning the word "challenge" is often a non starter as well.
You and slap are going awfully easy on this one.
? Maybe none of the people under the bridge thought it right to even donate
Much like Kyleran said above it comes down to not (yet) over promising and under delivering. If you go back you will see me calling out Renfail on his overly aggressive behavior (the infamous tissues post) and I have serious doubts that they will be able to deliver at the end. But... and here’s the big BUT... they have done crowdfunding right. For the most part they kept their day jobs, they did this on their own time and they didn’t over sell the game. Right now, go on their website, open the store and try to buy the game. You can’t. Isn’t that amazing? They shut their store while they actually work on their Alpha product.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
2. What's the power gaps between levels, percentage wise? And how many levels will there be in the first (chapter, was it?), and ultimately?
3. I don't understand how you will be handling group quests/story lines in an open world without instances. Lets say I'm already in a place where another group has a "point B" in their quest, they come in and supposedly have content for their story, what will I see and what will I be able to interact with? Will a BOSS pop in for them? Will I be able to help them? What happens to my normal content in the meantime? How's this work?
4. You call this a Sandbox. But I have a feeling that players will be restricted to content based on their levels to quite an extent, and that wouldn't actually be a Sandbox world. That's not bad, just bad for me, lol. Can you address this?
#1: Nope. It was never first person. We just didn't have third-person POV in for the first couple of years of pre alpha as it wasn't a priority and we wanted to play around with first person POV first from a design standpoint.
The myth of us being first-person only was fake news, despite us even having a blog post talking about our plans for third-person even back when we were still doing first person testing. Which was more than three years ago.
#2: There are no levels. There are no experience points. Instead, there are skills and skill lines called masteries. https://sagaoflucimia.com/game/faq
#3 & #4: Refer back to early EQ, early EQ2, and Vanguard for how games operate in non-instanced environments.
Ok, so big power gaps, and not really a Sandbox game. But you must have a reason to call it "Sandbox", and that leaves me wondering what that is. Are you having lots of worldly interaction? That's "levers on steroids". Makeshift battering rams? Breaking down stone doors? Releasing water to drain pools? Stacking objects to climb? What's your thinking here?
This doesn't sound like a game I want. But there's a lot of gamers out there with all kinds of ideals. Good luck.
wow so only the 10 players who play teh game voted on it? never heard of it btw, even less when they made the votes
One of the devs posts here quite often and there have been plenty of news articles on it.
Console playing casuals and BR lovers aren't very likely to follow this game, I'm sure for most their eyes glaze over when mention is made of the group centric, cooperative design.
Mentioning the word "challenge" is often a non starter as well.
You and slap are going awfully easy on this one.
? Maybe none of the people under the bridge thought it right to even donate
Unlike every other indie KSer lead, Renfail never over promised or under delivered.
From day one they told people not to donate unless they were comfortable with the fact there was no promised delivery date or this was being delivered by a team whose founders had no actual game development experience.
They let their backers into their very early builds making no apologies for its roughness and honestly took their feedback to heart in refining the game's design.
I recall challenging Renfail a few years ago on whether they could really pull this off.
He never went into a rage over anyone daring to question his vision, or spouted off about their amazing technology or gannt charts which were going to make the magic happen in just two short years.
Renfail just stated what they had done so far, planned to do, and again asked I not pledge unless fully comfortable with what I saw.
He will vigorously defend the game, their vision, progress to date or lack thereof while always keeping his composure, never getting butthurt by critics comments or openly showing any anger towards others, not even douchy acting old trolls who live under the bridge.
He never, ever throws his team under a bus for any reason, but is quick to praise them when warranted.
Strangest thing of all is, unlike Mark, Jeremy or Stephen (who all fail fabulously in the above areas BTW) who came to this site with hat in hand begging for money, but now all ghost it he still comes back to interact with us here in these forums, go figure.
They miraculously found a backer a year or so ago (unlike some other efforts) and get this, pulled down their pre-order page and stopped actively soliciting backers for money? I mean what developerdoes such a thing? One with some integrity I guess.
This is a game I have very little interest in playing but I'll probably one day toss in some money just to give it try and to support its development.
I mean hey, it's a game created by (former) armchair developers like myself, how could I not look favorably when it appears they might not only pull it off, but beat some of the "big" names to the finish line.
Besides, even @delete5230 likes this game, you just know it has to be good.
Thanks. That's probably one of the best-written things I've seen here on MMORPG.com in all the years I've been coming here.
I would dispell one thing, however. In terms of our launch. I know it might seem as though we may beat some of the "bigger" games with celebrity behind them to the punch in terms of a launch date, but I know for a fact that our game won't have the same visual polish as theirs will.
Games like Star Citizen, Camelot Unchained, even Pantheon, are focused on creating a "feature complete", or near feature complete, experience for their players, and that's something we know for a fact just isn't possible or realistic with an MMORPG.
Games as a service evolve. EQ1 revamped their character models several years in. Added instancing later on. Added guild halls later on. WoW is a case study in a game continually evolving (for better or worse). Elder Scrolls Online didn't launch with housing. Neither did Lord of the Rings Online. DDO didn't have mounts for, what was it, 10 years? These were all features added in later.
We fully recognize that what we view as an acceptable launch product, and what many others view as acceptable, won't match.
We've looked at small teams with big dreams who launched their products in early stages, but then grew them up over time. Gloria Victus. Warframe. Path of Exile, just to name a few.
I don't personally enjoy some of those games for various reasons. But the teams behind them are what we pay attention to. Their games launched, in some cases in rough states, but through hard work, perseverance, and sheer dedication from both the fans and the developers, built them up patch by patch, expansion by expansion, into where they are today.
Games that started with teams of 8 people, then grew to 18. Then grew to 30. Then grew to 50. And so on and so forth.
One of the benefits of being largely self-funded and backed by private investments is that we aren't being pressured to hit some ridiculously large numbers by a publisher who will pull the plug on us if we drop below a few million a month in revenue. We can take things slow, at our own pace, which is what we've always done since the beginning.
Our goal isn't to beat anyone to the finish line, persay. It was more the result of us sitting down as a team and saying look, if we don't set a publishing date it's never gonna happen. If we keep trying to look for the perfect launch, we'll be here forever. We have spouses and significant others who have been supporting our unpaid side hustle for the past six years, and we owe it to them, even more than our community to some degrees, to get something out the door so we can start drawing paychecks.
The other option would be to do what most of the other crowdfunded games are doing. Annual fundraising drives (or quarterly) to keep the lights on so they can keep working on things, but then continually adding new features or things that push the launch window out into some grey, unknown area.
And granted, we've certainly leveraged the pre-order store in the past. Certainly before we got private investors on board. And we will absolutely be leveraging them again from March 18th until our launch date (damn greedy developers!). But I'd like to think that we've proven ourselves over the past six years as a team who does what they say they will do, without any showmanship or overpromising, even if people don't necessarily think that our game will be for them.
My only objective is to launch a game that players will find to be fun, enjoyable, and then continue to build upon it leveraging the reputation of our team members for being hardworking, passionate developers who want to keep adding to things to make it better over time. We won't be perfect, we won't be a game for everyone, but we'll work bust our asses to make the best possible game we possibly can, and then sweat blood and tears until we can make it better.
We still won't offer refunds or ever put our product on Steam, though =P
wow so only the 10 players who play teh game voted on it? never heard of it btw, even less when they made the votes
One of the devs posts here quite often and there have been plenty of news articles on it.
Console playing casuals and BR lovers aren't very likely to follow this game, I'm sure for most their eyes glaze over when mention is made of the group centric, cooperative design.
Mentioning the word "challenge" is often a non starter as well.
You and slap are going awfully easy on this one.
? Maybe none of the people under the bridge thought it right to even donate
Much like Kyleran said above it comes down to not (yet) over promising and under delivering. If you go back you will see me calling out Renfail on his overly aggressive behavior (the infamous tissues post) and I have serious doubts that they will be able to deliver at the end. But... and here’s the big BUT... they have done crowdfunding right. For the most part they kept their day jobs, they did this on their own time and they didn’t over sell the game. Right now, go on their website, open the store and try to buy the game. You can’t. Isn’t that amazing? They shut their store while they actually work on their Alpha product.
Thanks. That's probably one of the best-written things I've seen here on MMORPG.com in all the years I've been coming here.
I would dispell one thing, however. In terms of our launch. I know it might seem as though we may beat some of the "bigger" games with celebrity behind them to the punch in terms of a launch date, but I know for a fact that our game won't have the same visual polish as theirs will.
Games like Star Citizen, Camelot Unchained, even Pantheon, are focused on creating a "feature complete", or near feature complete, experience for their players, and that's something we know for a fact just isn't possible or realistic with an MMORPG.
Games as a service evolve. EQ1 revamped their character models several years in. Added instancing later on. Added guild halls later on. WoW is a case study in a game continually evolving (for better or worse). Elder Scrolls Online didn't launch with housing. Neither did Lord of the Rings Online. DDO didn't have mounts for, what was it, 10 years? These were all features added in later.
We fully recognize that what we view as an acceptable launch product, and what many others view as acceptable, won't match.
We've looked at small teams with big dreams who launched their products in early stages, but then grew them up over time. Gloria Victus. Warframe. Path of Exile, just to name a few.
I don't personally enjoy some of those games for various reasons. But the teams behind them are what we pay attention to. Their games launched, in some cases in rough states, but through hard work, perseverance, and sheer dedication from both the fans and the developers, built them up patch by patch, expansion by expansion, into where they are today.
Games that started with teams of 8 people, then grew to 18. Then grew to 30. Then grew to 50. And so on and so forth.
One of the benefits of being largely self-funded and backed by private investments is that we aren't being pressured to hit some ridiculously large numbers by a publisher who will pull the plug on us if we drop below a few million a month in revenue. We can take things slow, at our own pace, which is what we've always done since the beginning.
Our goal isn't to beat anyone to the finish line, persay. It was more the result of us sitting down as a team and saying look, if we don't set a publishing date it's never gonna happen. If we keep trying to look for the perfect launch, we'll be here forever. We have spouses and significant others who have been supporting our unpaid side hustle for the past six years, and we owe it to them, even more than our community to some degrees, to get something out the door so we can start drawing paychecks.
The other option would be to do what most of the other crowdfunded games are doing. Annual fundraising drives (or quarterly) to keep the lights on so they can keep working on things, but then continually adding new features or things that push the launch window out into some grey, unknown area.
And granted, we've certainly leveraged the pre-order store in the past. Certainly before we got private investors on board. And we will absolutely be leveraging them again from March 18th until our launch date (damn greedy developers!). But I'd like to think that we've proven ourselves over the past six years as a team who does what they say they will do, without any showmanship or overpromising, even if people don't necessarily think that our game will be for them.
My only objective is to launch a game that players will find to be fun, enjoyable, and then continue to build upon it leveraging the reputation of our team members for being hardworking, passionate developers who want to keep adding to things to make it better over time. We won't be perfect, we won't be a game for everyone, but we'll work bust our asses to make the best possible game we possibly can, and then sweat blood and tears until we can make it better.
We still won't offer refunds or ever put our product on Steam, though =P
Summary - our game will be an unfinished unpolished mess at "launch" by normal standards. Also graphics wont be great.
Also no refunds, no steam
But we are passionate and hard working!
You complain about companies not being honest about their products almost daily but when one does you mock them.
Thanks. That's probably one of the best-written things I've seen here on MMORPG.com in all the years I've been coming here.
I would dispell one thing, however. In terms of our launch. I know it might seem as though we may beat some of the "bigger" games with celebrity behind them to the punch in terms of a launch date, but I know for a fact that our game won't have the same visual polish as theirs will.
Games like Star Citizen, Camelot Unchained, even Pantheon, are focused on creating a "feature complete", or near feature complete, experience for their players, and that's something we know for a fact just isn't possible or realistic with an MMORPG.
Games as a service evolve. EQ1 revamped their character models several years in. Added instancing later on. Added guild halls later on. WoW is a case study in a game continually evolving (for better or worse). Elder Scrolls Online didn't launch with housing. Neither did Lord of the Rings Online. DDO didn't have mounts for, what was it, 10 years? These were all features added in later.
We fully recognize that what we view as an acceptable launch product, and what many others view as acceptable, won't match.
We've looked at small teams with big dreams who launched their products in early stages, but then grew them up over time. Gloria Victus. Warframe. Path of Exile, just to name a few.
I don't personally enjoy some of those games for various reasons. But the teams behind them are what we pay attention to. Their games launched, in some cases in rough states, but through hard work, perseverance, and sheer dedication from both the fans and the developers, built them up patch by patch, expansion by expansion, into where they are today.
Games that started with teams of 8 people, then grew to 18. Then grew to 30. Then grew to 50. And so on and so forth.
One of the benefits of being largely self-funded and backed by private investments is that we aren't being pressured to hit some ridiculously large numbers by a publisher who will pull the plug on us if we drop below a few million a month in revenue. We can take things slow, at our own pace, which is what we've always done since the beginning.
Our goal isn't to beat anyone to the finish line, persay. It was more the result of us sitting down as a team and saying look, if we don't set a publishing date it's never gonna happen. If we keep trying to look for the perfect launch, we'll be here forever. We have spouses and significant others who have been supporting our unpaid side hustle for the past six years, and we owe it to them, even more than our community to some degrees, to get something out the door so we can start drawing paychecks.
The other option would be to do what most of the other crowdfunded games are doing. Annual fundraising drives (or quarterly) to keep the lights on so they can keep working on things, but then continually adding new features or things that push the launch window out into some grey, unknown area.
And granted, we've certainly leveraged the pre-order store in the past. Certainly before we got private investors on board. And we will absolutely be leveraging them again from March 18th until our launch date (damn greedy developers!). But I'd like to think that we've proven ourselves over the past six years as a team who does what they say they will do, without any showmanship or overpromising, even if people don't necessarily think that our game will be for them.
My only objective is to launch a game that players will find to be fun, enjoyable, and then continue to build upon it leveraging the reputation of our team members for being hardworking, passionate developers who want to keep adding to things to make it better over time. We won't be perfect, we won't be a game for everyone, but we'll work bust our asses to make the best possible game we possibly can, and then sweat blood and tears until we can make it better.
We still won't offer refunds or ever put our product on Steam, though =P
Summary - our game will be an unfinished unpolished mess at "launch" by normal standards. Also graphics wont be great.
Also no refunds, no steam
But we are passionate and hard working!
You complain about companies not being honest about their products almost daily but when one does you mock them.
Thanks. That's probably one of the best-written things I've seen here on MMORPG.com in all the years I've been coming here.
I would dispell one thing, however. In terms of our launch. I know it might seem as though we may beat some of the "bigger" games with celebrity behind them to the punch in terms of a launch date, but I know for a fact that our game won't have the same visual polish as theirs will.
Games like Star Citizen, Camelot Unchained, even Pantheon, are focused on creating a "feature complete", or near feature complete, experience for their players, and that's something we know for a fact just isn't possible or realistic with an MMORPG.
Games as a service evolve. EQ1 revamped their character models several years in. Added instancing later on. Added guild halls later on. WoW is a case study in a game continually evolving (for better or worse). Elder Scrolls Online didn't launch with housing. Neither did Lord of the Rings Online. DDO didn't have mounts for, what was it, 10 years? These were all features added in later.
We fully recognize that what we view as an acceptable launch product, and what many others view as acceptable, won't match.
We've looked at small teams with big dreams who launched their products in early stages, but then grew them up over time. Gloria Victus. Warframe. Path of Exile, just to name a few.
I don't personally enjoy some of those games for various reasons. But the teams behind them are what we pay attention to. Their games launched, in some cases in rough states, but through hard work, perseverance, and sheer dedication from both the fans and the developers, built them up patch by patch, expansion by expansion, into where they are today.
Games that started with teams of 8 people, then grew to 18. Then grew to 30. Then grew to 50. And so on and so forth.
One of the benefits of being largely self-funded and backed by private investments is that we aren't being pressured to hit some ridiculously large numbers by a publisher who will pull the plug on us if we drop below a few million a month in revenue. We can take things slow, at our own pace, which is what we've always done since the beginning.
Our goal isn't to beat anyone to the finish line, persay. It was more the result of us sitting down as a team and saying look, if we don't set a publishing date it's never gonna happen. If we keep trying to look for the perfect launch, we'll be here forever. We have spouses and significant others who have been supporting our unpaid side hustle for the past six years, and we owe it to them, even more than our community to some degrees, to get something out the door so we can start drawing paychecks.
The other option would be to do what most of the other crowdfunded games are doing. Annual fundraising drives (or quarterly) to keep the lights on so they can keep working on things, but then continually adding new features or things that push the launch window out into some grey, unknown area.
And granted, we've certainly leveraged the pre-order store in the past. Certainly before we got private investors on board. And we will absolutely be leveraging them again from March 18th until our launch date (damn greedy developers!). But I'd like to think that we've proven ourselves over the past six years as a team who does what they say they will do, without any showmanship or overpromising, even if people don't necessarily think that our game will be for them.
My only objective is to launch a game that players will find to be fun, enjoyable, and then continue to build upon it leveraging the reputation of our team members for being hardworking, passionate developers who want to keep adding to things to make it better over time. We won't be perfect, we won't be a game for everyone, but we'll work bust our asses to make the best possible game we possibly can, and then sweat blood and tears until we can make it better.
We still won't offer refunds or ever put our product on Steam, though =P
Summary - our game will be an unfinished unpolished mess at "launch" by normal standards. Also graphics wont be great.
Also no refunds, no steam
But we are passionate and hard working!
Rarely, if ever have we been on the same page. On this one we are.
Renfail as a pr guy you’ve earned my respect over the last 6 years. Form complete douche (never forget his fist day here) to somehow gaining the hearts of this forum. Mind you doing so with the absolute worst looking and playing mmorpg (At this point I almost expect you to agree with me on this) ever to pub on this site.
Maybe a lot has happened and something playable will be shown in March. Until then my friends this is nothing more than indie pr at a level we’ve never seen on mmorpg.com
Thanks. That's probably one of the best-written things I've seen here on MMORPG.com in all the years I've been coming here.
I would dispell one thing, however. In terms of our launch. I know it might seem as though we may beat some of the "bigger" games with celebrity behind them to the punch in terms of a launch date, but I know for a fact that our game won't have the same visual polish as theirs will.
Games like Star Citizen, Camelot Unchained, even Pantheon, are focused on creating a "feature complete", or near feature complete, experience for their players, and that's something we know for a fact just isn't possible or realistic with an MMORPG.
Games as a service evolve. EQ1 revamped their character models several years in. Added instancing later on. Added guild halls later on. WoW is a case study in a game continually evolving (for better or worse). Elder Scrolls Online didn't launch with housing. Neither did Lord of the Rings Online. DDO didn't have mounts for, what was it, 10 years? These were all features added in later.
We fully recognize that what we view as an acceptable launch product, and what many others view as acceptable, won't match.
We've looked at small teams with big dreams who launched their products in early stages, but then grew them up over time. Gloria Victus. Warframe. Path of Exile, just to name a few.
I don't personally enjoy some of those games for various reasons. But the teams behind them are what we pay attention to. Their games launched, in some cases in rough states, but through hard work, perseverance, and sheer dedication from both the fans and the developers, built them up patch by patch, expansion by expansion, into where they are today.
Games that started with teams of 8 people, then grew to 18. Then grew to 30. Then grew to 50. And so on and so forth.
One of the benefits of being largely self-funded and backed by private investments is that we aren't being pressured to hit some ridiculously large numbers by a publisher who will pull the plug on us if we drop below a few million a month in revenue. We can take things slow, at our own pace, which is what we've always done since the beginning.
Our goal isn't to beat anyone to the finish line, persay. It was more the result of us sitting down as a team and saying look, if we don't set a publishing date it's never gonna happen. If we keep trying to look for the perfect launch, we'll be here forever. We have spouses and significant others who have been supporting our unpaid side hustle for the past six years, and we owe it to them, even more than our community to some degrees, to get something out the door so we can start drawing paychecks.
The other option would be to do what most of the other crowdfunded games are doing. Annual fundraising drives (or quarterly) to keep the lights on so they can keep working on things, but then continually adding new features or things that push the launch window out into some grey, unknown area.
And granted, we've certainly leveraged the pre-order store in the past. Certainly before we got private investors on board. And we will absolutely be leveraging them again from March 18th until our launch date (damn greedy developers!). But I'd like to think that we've proven ourselves over the past six years as a team who does what they say they will do, without any showmanship or overpromising, even if people don't necessarily think that our game will be for them.
My only objective is to launch a game that players will find to be fun, enjoyable, and then continue to build upon it leveraging the reputation of our team members for being hardworking, passionate developers who want to keep adding to things to make it better over time. We won't be perfect, we won't be a game for everyone, but we'll work bust our asses to make the best possible game we possibly can, and then sweat blood and tears until we can make it better.
We still won't offer refunds or ever put our product on Steam, though =P
Summary - our game will be an unfinished unpolished mess at "launch" by normal standards. Also graphics wont be great.
Also no refunds, no steam
But we are passionate and hard working!
You complain about companies not being honest about their products almost daily but when one does you mock them.
Rarely, if ever have we been on the same page. On this one we are.
Renfail as a pr guy you’ve earned my respect over the last 6 years. Form complete douche (never forget his fist day here) to somehow gaining the hearts of this forum. Mind you doing so with the absolute worst looking and playing mmorpg (At this point I almost expect you to agree with me on this) ever to pub on this site.
Maybe a lot has happened and something playable will be shown in March. Until then my friends this is nothing more than indie pr at a level we’ve never seen on mmorpg.com
No doubt it hasn't been finished, and there are lots of features missing (it's an alpha), and it's absolutely rough (again, alpha), but it's been playable since we first opened pre-alpha in September of 2015. So I would argue against your "worst-playing MMORPG" comment and suggest that yeah, it's rough because we are in alpha and haven't finished it yet.
We've been proud to share our progress via our YouTube channel, documenting the construction of our game, warts and all, with 500+ videos since 2014. There is no shame in showing early drafts, even if some folks don't agree them. Our videos were never about marketing a polished product, but showing how our team of nobodies with zero experience was able to build something from scratch with nothing more than perseverance.
Worst-looking? I would also argue that's not necessarily the case, but are we polished or optimized? Nope. You can't look at a house when its foundation is being poured and make a judgement call on if the house is a good-looking house or not. You have to wait until the framing is done, roofing is done, siding is on, flooring is finished, trim installed, paint finished, interior decorations are finalized, and the owners moved in.
So do we look like shit? Well, we certainly don't look like a AAA polished, launched game, that's for sure
I haven't necessarily gained the hearts of everyone here, but I would argue that by the sheer act of actually *DOING* what we said we were going to do, we've earned the respect of some people who can sit back after several years of watching us progress and go, "Damn. Maybe they *will* pull it off after all."
Of course, we still aren't launched yet, and by some "critics" you ain't got a game until you launch
Comments
1. Is this a 1st person only view?
2. What's the power gaps between levels, percentage wise? And how many levels will there be in the first (chapter, was it?), and ultimately?
3. I don't understand how you will be handling group quests/story lines in an open world without instances.
Lets say I'm already in a place where another group has a "point B" in their quest, they come in and supposedly have content for their story, what will I see and what will I be able to interact with? Will a BOSS pop in for them? Will I be able to help them? What happens to my normal content in the meantime? How's this work?
4. You call this a Sandbox. But I have a feeling that players will be restricted to content based on their levels to quite an extent, and that wouldn't actually be a Sandbox world.
That's not bad, just bad for me, lol.
Can you address this?
Once upon a time....
I'm sure it's in the pipeline somewhere!
Just make sure you have the apologies at the ready, and you’ll be fine...
#1: Nope. It was never first person. We just didn't have third-person POV in for the first couple of years of pre alpha as it wasn't a priority and we wanted to play around with first person POV first from a design standpoint.
The myth of us being first-person only was fake news, despite us even having a blog post talking about our plans for third-person even back when we were still doing first person testing. Which was more than three years ago.
#2: There are no levels. There are no experience points. Instead, there are skills and skill lines called masteries. https://sagaoflucimia.com/game/faq
#3 & #4: Refer back to early EQ, early EQ2, and Vanguard for how games operate in non-instanced environments.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
I'm writing 90% of the quest dialogue in the game (and editing the other 10% that John is writing), and my goal is to maintain the same style throughout. It's a little tricker since I've had to learn markup and that can kind of take you out of the flow of things sometimes, but at the end of the day it's whatever it takes to get the storyline into the game
That's one of the things we're testing this upcoming build, actually, in April; the first iteration of the *actual* primary storyline. Up until this point we've only ever tested throwaway content.
But you must have a reason to call it "Sandbox", and that leaves me wondering what that is.
Are you having lots of worldly interaction? That's "levers on steroids". Makeshift battering rams? Breaking down stone doors? Releasing water to drain pools? Stacking objects to climb? What's your thinking here?
This doesn't sound like a game I want. But there's a lot of gamers out there with all kinds of ideals.
Good luck.
Once upon a time....
? Maybe none of the people under the bridge thought it right to even donate
From day one they told people not to donate unless they were comfortable with the fact there was no promised delivery date or this was being delivered by a team whose founders had no actual game development experience.
They let their backers into their very early builds making no apologies for its roughness and honestly took their feedback to heart in refining the game's design.
I recall challenging Renfail a few years ago on whether they could really pull this off.
He never went into a rage over anyone daring to question his vision, or spouted off about their amazing technology or gannt charts which were going to make the magic happen in just two short years.
Renfail just stated what they had done so far, planned to do, and again asked I not pledge unless fully comfortable with what I saw.
He will vigorously defend the game, their vision, progress to date or lack thereof while always keeping his composure, never getting butthurt by critics comments or openly showing any anger towards others, not even douchy acting old trolls who live under the bridge.
He never, ever throws his team under a bus for any reason, but is quick to praise them when warranted.
Strangest thing of all is, unlike Mark, Jeremy or Stephen (who all fail fabulously in the above areas BTW) who came to this site with hat in hand begging for money, but now all ghost it he still comes back to interact with us here in these forums, go figure.
They miraculously found a backer a year or so ago (unlike some other efforts) and get this, pulled down their pre-order page and stopped actively soliciting backers for money? I mean what developerdoes such a thing? One with some integrity I guess.
This is a game I have very little interest in playing but I'll probably one day toss in some money just to give it try and to support its development.
I mean hey, it's a game created by (former) armchair developers like myself, how could I not look favorably when it appears they might not only pull it off, but beat some of the "big" names to the finish line.
Besides, even @delete5230 likes this game, you just know it has to be good.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
What a devious way to infiltrate and subvert the west.
Best of luck out there!
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
I would dispell one thing, however. In terms of our launch. I know it might seem as though we may beat some of the "bigger" games with celebrity behind them to the punch in terms of a launch date, but I know for a fact that our game won't have the same visual polish as theirs will.
Games like Star Citizen, Camelot Unchained, even Pantheon, are focused on creating a "feature complete", or near feature complete, experience for their players, and that's something we know for a fact just isn't possible or realistic with an MMORPG.
Games as a service evolve. EQ1 revamped their character models several years in. Added instancing later on. Added guild halls later on. WoW is a case study in a game continually evolving (for better or worse). Elder Scrolls Online didn't launch with housing. Neither did Lord of the Rings Online. DDO didn't have mounts for, what was it, 10 years? These were all features added in later.
We fully recognize that what we view as an acceptable launch product, and what many others view as acceptable, won't match.
We've looked at small teams with big dreams who launched their products in early stages, but then grew them up over time. Gloria Victus. Warframe. Path of Exile, just to name a few.
I don't personally enjoy some of those games for various reasons. But the teams behind them are what we pay attention to. Their games launched, in some cases in rough states, but through hard work, perseverance, and sheer dedication from both the fans and the developers, built them up patch by patch, expansion by expansion, into where they are today.
Games that started with teams of 8 people, then grew to 18. Then grew to 30. Then grew to 50. And so on and so forth.
One of the benefits of being largely self-funded and backed by private investments is that we aren't being pressured to hit some ridiculously large numbers by a publisher who will pull the plug on us if we drop below a few million a month in revenue. We can take things slow, at our own pace, which is what we've always done since the beginning.
Our goal isn't to beat anyone to the finish line, persay. It was more the result of us sitting down as a team and saying look, if we don't set a publishing date it's never gonna happen. If we keep trying to look for the perfect launch, we'll be here forever. We have spouses and significant others who have been supporting our unpaid side hustle for the past six years, and we owe it to them, even more than our community to some degrees, to get something out the door so we can start drawing paychecks.
The other option would be to do what most of the other crowdfunded games are doing. Annual fundraising drives (or quarterly) to keep the lights on so they can keep working on things, but then continually adding new features or things that push the launch window out into some grey, unknown area.
And granted, we've certainly leveraged the pre-order store in the past. Certainly before we got private investors on board. And we will absolutely be leveraging them again from March 18th until our launch date (damn greedy developers!). But I'd like to think that we've proven ourselves over the past six years as a team who does what they say they will do, without any showmanship or overpromising, even if people don't necessarily think that our game will be for them.
My only objective is to launch a game that players will find to be fun, enjoyable, and then continue to build upon it leveraging the reputation of our team members for being hardworking, passionate developers who want to keep adding to things to make it better over time. We won't be perfect, we won't be a game for everyone, but we'll work bust our asses to make the best possible game we possibly can, and then sweat blood and tears until we can make it better.
We still won't offer refunds or ever put our product on Steam, though =P
But for those who understand that MMORPGs are games as a service that improve with time from launch, we'll be something they enjoy.
Renfail as a pr guy you’ve earned my respect over the last 6 years. Form complete douche (never forget his fist day here) to somehow gaining the hearts of this forum. Mind you doing so with the absolute worst looking and playing mmorpg (At this point I almost expect you to agree with me on this) ever to pub on this site.
He’s not mocking... that’s the thing.
No doubt it hasn't been finished, and there are lots of features missing (it's an alpha), and it's absolutely rough (again, alpha), but it's been playable since we first opened pre-alpha in September of 2015. So I would argue against your "worst-playing MMORPG" comment and suggest that yeah, it's rough because we are in alpha and haven't finished it yet.
We've been proud to share our progress via our YouTube channel, documenting the construction of our game, warts and all, with 500+ videos since 2014. There is no shame in showing early drafts, even if some folks don't agree them. Our videos were never about marketing a polished product, but showing how our team of nobodies with zero experience was able to build something from scratch with nothing more than perseverance.
Worst-looking? I would also argue that's not necessarily the case, but are we polished or optimized? Nope. You can't look at a house when its foundation is being poured and make a judgement call on if the house is a good-looking house or not. You have to wait until the framing is done, roofing is done, siding is on, flooring is finished, trim installed, paint finished, interior decorations are finalized, and the owners moved in.
So do we look like shit? Well, we certainly don't look like a AAA polished, launched game, that's for sure
Cory from God of War had a great series of comments on optimization/polish over at Polygon recently: https://www.polygon.com/2020/1/24/21078965/god-of-war-cory-barlog-cyberpunk-2077-development-performance-rumor
I haven't necessarily gained the hearts of everyone here, but I would argue that by the sheer act of actually *DOING* what we said we were going to do, we've earned the respect of some people who can sit back after several years of watching us progress and go, "Damn. Maybe they *will* pull it off after all."
Of course, we still aren't launched yet, and by some "critics" you ain't got a game until you launch