Wildman - Update #1, DRM, Offline Mode and More

Dhruin

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Bob points out the first Wildman update, which covers DRM, offline mode, multiplayer and more:
Greetings people of Kickstarter!
We’ve had an amazing first couple of days with Wildman, and would like to thank every one of you for supporting the project. In reading over your feedback and questions, we realize that we had a few holes in our initial pitch and need to give a few more details.
No DRM

Wildman will have no DRM. Nada. Zip.
Offline and Online Mode

Wildman will have an offline and online mode. We’re focusing our initial efforts on the offline version. The offline version will not require an Internet connection to play. It will also support all mods. We may allow offline characters in private co-op, but that’s TBD.
The online version will feature a character vault that allows you to easily move the same character between machines, and will be more secure. It will be the version used in public co-op multiplayer, and will allow limited “approved” mods.
Linux and OS/X Support

These are stretch goals. Once we meet our initial funding, we will unveil the goals we need to reach to support additional platforms. We are not using a commercial engine like Unity, so each additional OS adds requires additional development and testing to our project. However, we have already started the work to make our engine support multi-platform OpenGL instead of Windows-only DirectX.
(This is the primary reason we’ve been hesitant to show gameplay; we are mid-renderer, which means the game today does not look as good as it will when we are finished.)
Multiplayer

We are initially focused on developing the single-player version of Wildman, and after we get that version complete we will add co-op support to War Zones.
It is our belief that adding co-operative play to an already entertaining single-player game makes for a fun co-op multiplayer game. The opposite, however, isn’t always true.
Project Background

In the first week of January, 2013, Microsoft announced that it was ending content development for Age of Empires Online. Unfortunately, some news sites incorrectly attributed this decision to us; the official statement came from Microsoft, and they alone could make that kind of decision.
Wildman was already in development. The basic concept was conceived of early last year, but we finally assigned a team to the project at the start of October. Everything in this Kickstarter represents the first three months of development work, which is one of the reasons why some of the details are still up-in-the-air. Every day, we come up with more specifics; we intend to share those decisions with the public, and backers will have a chance to shape those decisions.

It’s one of the reasons why we’re here, to let you take part in this game’s development. If we were further along, these decisions would already be made.
More information.
 
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One of my favorite features of Kickstarter is the absolute absence of DRM in every game listed there. In fact, anyone who doesn't explicitly state that their game will have a zero DRM download option is immediately hounded for clarification until they make it clear.
 
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It is our belief that adding co-operative play to an already entertaining single-player game makes for a fun co-op multiplayer game. The opposite, however, isn’t always true.

What makes a coop game is having coop mechanics. Entertaining single player game is irrelevant. What works in SP does not work forcefully in co op.

But it is also true that more and more, over the last 20 years, when co operation was an aim for many designers, slowly, co operation has grown to mean several players playing on the same side as opposed to players playing on opposite sides.

Yet having players playing on the same side is not enough to make a co operative game.
 
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