Camelot Unchained

Roq

Seeker
Original Sin Donor
Joined
May 18, 2012
Messages
1,501
Location
Somerset/London UK
Not sure if anyone's noticed, but Mark Jacobs has just launched his new MMO on Kickstarter. It's going to be a Realm vs Realm vs Realm game and looks like it will be entirely a PvP game. Very niche!
 
Joined
May 18, 2012
Messages
1,501
Location
Somerset/London UK
Askin only 2M for MMO... That's not enough IMO.
Yes it's a "subscription" based game, means weekly or monthly milking the customers, but still.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
Mark Jacobs says he will be putting 2M of his own money into the pot and not take a salary, plus he's got another 1M from somewhere. So that makes $5M. Still just loose change by the standards of Blizz/Bioware/Bethesda/Arenanet/Archeage, but they are keeping the focus very tight on RvR and not trying to be all things to all men like GW2. So maybe it's feasible.

Subscription obviously won't kick in until release so that's not going to help to fund the games development unless they just intend to release something very bare bones and add the rest later.

I like some of the ideas, such as bazaar style markets rather than a single auction house, which is something i've been posting about for half a decade :). Anyway, definitely worth a punt for me.

550K on the first day wasn't bad, but they've still got some work to do...
 
Last edited:
Joined
May 18, 2012
Messages
1,501
Location
Somerset/London UK
MMOs take so many resources to do right these days - and this throwback to ancient times is something I don't see having the kind of appeal necessary to make RvR feasible in the long run.

In fact, I think the person in charge would understand this if he really knew anything about the genre - which is a good reason to stay far away from this one.
 
MMOs take so many resources to do right these days - and this throwback to ancient times is something I don't see having the kind of appeal necessary to make RvR feasible in the long run.

In fact, I think the person in charge would understand this if he really knew anything about the genre - which is a good reason to stay far away from this one.

Mark Jacobs made both Dark Age Of Camelot (DAOC) and Warhammer Online (WAR), so I reckon he could claim to know something about the genre, and perhaps might be considered to have invented 3R (3 faction RvR) outright in DAOC.

WAR got a lot of criticism, but that was largely because of changes made when EA took over Mythic entertainment and radical alterations were made to add WoW features (levelling etc.). But WAR is the only recent MMO I've played where I really enjoyed the PvP, despite it's problems.

I think they are well aware that 3R PvP is a niche market, PvE being the mainstream. But, niche markets are still markets and when you try to cater for everyone, it not only makes the games incredibly expensive to produce, but also results in compromises that most often make the gameplay trivial and unchallenging and then you lose a lot of your core players.

That said, there is little doubt that Unchained is a risky proposition and there are no guarantees - but that's the fun of Kickstarter - that Devs can innovate again.
 
Joined
May 18, 2012
Messages
1,501
Location
Somerset/London UK
The laying out of the principles does not show that the main issue in MMO is addressed: how to synchronize players.

If so many MMO went the solo play way, it is mostly because removing the requirement to synchronize players is the best way they found to synchronize them.
 
Joined
Mar 29, 2011
Messages
6,265
The laying out of the principles does not show that the main issue in MMO is addressed: how to synchronize players.

If so many MMO went the solo play way, it is mostly because removing the requirement to synchronize players is the best way they found to synchronize them.

Très énigmatique, Chien. Would have thought that the ability to synchronize players in a PvP game was a pretty fundamental part of the design and not something that really needs to be explained in detail. What they have explained, to some extent, is how they plan to support large scale battles with lots of players on screen simultaneously - Now that has been a problem in past MMOs.
 
Joined
May 18, 2012
Messages
1,501
Location
Somerset/London UK
That is not the technical side here.

The principles speak of hardcore gaming/gamers, casual gaming/gamers etc, proclaiming to focus on hardcore gaming with various points (sense of achievement, enduring the consequences of mistakes either...)

But every player comes with different availabilities, committment opportunities etc

Even when relying only on players who want to play games that fit the depiction set out in the principles, synchronisation of each relatively to their availability, committment must happen.

Two players playing 400 hours per year this game might not allocate their time the same way.
One might play 20 hours per week over 20 weeks spread unevenly while the other might play 8 hours every week.

Synchronization must occur. How to make sure that those two players who want to play the same game but cant play it at the same rate can coexist in the same game without one feeling/being deficient to the other?

Committment: some players might be able to meet a fixed schedule, with meeting points while others might only be able to play when they have a window to play.
Same hours played over the week but with a different level of committment.
Synchronization must occur.

All these players want to play the same game designed on the same principles.

It is indeed part of the design to answer the synchronization issue.

And the conclusion given by others migh be the right one: players ending with having one thing only in common: having nothing in common.

Following the only possible answer is the surrender of synchronization, designing the game so that there is no requirement to synchronize. Hence the solo play.

Players can play without bothering about synchronizing with others when they play solo.
 
Joined
Mar 29, 2011
Messages
6,265
Well, Camelot Unchained just made their Kickstarter goal of $2m which I think is the largest target of any game so far. I think this is really positive considering that CU is a pretty niche game (RvR PvP) and shows that it may be possible through crowd funding to make much more focused games rather than just casual nerfed sequels to popular IPs.
 
Joined
May 18, 2012
Messages
1,501
Location
Somerset/London UK
I'm glad they made it. Must have been quite a ramp up, they were still over $200k short when I last checked on them. Not my type of game, but still glad they made it.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
3,508
Back
Top Bottom