Ship of Heroes - Lessons Learned Lead to a Plan for the Future a Interviews at MMORPG.com

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Ship of Heroes - Lessons Learned Lead to a Plan for the Future a Interviews at MMORPG.com

Last week, Ship of Heroes was brought to KickStarter and pulled from KickStarter all in the space of a few days. Though that may seem like a setback for the team, they've taken the lessons learned to heart to form a solid plan for the future. Check out our exclusive interview to see where Ship of Heroes is headed next.

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Wellspring

Well hopefully they can pull it off! I'm not overly optimistic, but I am rooting for their success.

sipress

I have more respect for SoH being transparent, and listening to there community. I particularly appreciate this statement.



"there is almost no connection between succeeding on Kickstarter and actually building a game. As long as we keep producing and showing real progress in development we think public support will continue to grow."



The second half of that statement shows that they are committed to delivery. The statement also brings to mind the vary successful Kickstarter "The Phoenix Project - City of Titans" started back in 2013. Currently all City of Titans have to show for there over $678k of Kickstarter funds are 24 rudimentary tech demo videos. City of Titans also has shown limited improvement of assets in the now 3+ year development cycle. I understand that games take time to develop but what has been shown does not bode well for CoT.



I was extremely skeptical about SoH Initially. The simple fact that they understand the importance of building a foundation first and "showing real progress in development" is promising. From this point on they have gained at the least my interest.

dcarden

I too am very optimistic and would have to agree with the 2nd comment as well..we donated a lot to CoT but its been pretty slim in terms of actual technical results.. I'm hopin this one really succeeds

Truvidien88

I'm hoping for the best for Ship of Heroes. Still can't stand the name but I just hope the gameplay is a lot of fun as it was with City of Heroes if not better.

Samhael

I am also hopeful for SoH. That said, if I recall correctly, the money raised for CoT was primarily for the software licenses that they would need to build the game. SoH has a company and I think these are full-timers, right? Not folks with 40+ hour a week jobs that are volunteering their time after their paid jobs for this like CoT. While there are a lot of similarities, this is by no means an apples to apples comparison. Frankly, I'd be happy for both to launch successfully.

Truvidien88

Samhael said:

I am also hopeful for SoH. That said, if I recall correctly, the money raised for CoT was primarily for the software licenses that they would need to build the game. SoH has a company and I think these are full-timers, right? Not folks with 40+ hour a week jobs that are volunteering their time after their paid jobs for this like CoT. While there are a lot of similarities, this is by no means an apples to apples comparison. Frankly, I'd be happy for both to launch successfully.

Yeah far as I know they have a company that is behind them.

GladDog

SoH has some full time people making less than industry standard, and some are working for free. Some are investing their savings to work full time and pay others to work full time. They have a lot of art people on the team, and some coders working long hours. I have been impressed by their transparency, showing us their progress as they go.



I think they have a lot to show for their efforts. Keep in mind that their first anniversary working on the project is still a few days away.



So yeah, I was one of those that would have put my money into their kickstarter if it succeeded, and if they have one later I will once again put my $$$ where my mouth is.



And oh yeah, I could not resist the urge to roleplay in their Starboard Lounge section!

GladDog

Truvidien88 said:

I'm hoping for the best for Ship of Heroes. Still can't stand the name but I just hope the gameplay is a lot of fun as it was with City of Heroes if not better.

When I first heard the name I was actually a bit offended, being a strong CoH fan.  But as I learned more and saw the premise for the name, I started tolerating it.  And as I learned more about the concept, I actually see the benefits of it.  And now, the name makes plenty of sense to me, and I would be troubled if they changed it.

Some things should change though, such as the name 'unobtainium' for the currency.  I'm sure that name is a placeholder.  The name Nagdelian though, should not change as it is actually a pun.

Nagdelian

Nagd elian
 rearrange the letters;
DANG ALIEN!

GladDog

DMKano said:

Good luck to them - if they ever have a finished product - I'll give it a whirl.

Finished product - key words for me, any half baked alpha or "in development" stage etc.. nope, gonna pass on that

Actually I like alpha and beta testing, but I know I am in the minority. I sure hope this ends up being a game you like! I'll do my input thing in the beta and report what I see.

Warlyx

can only say that im happy with the Devs , they really understand what players want , and i dont mind buying a solid "game" that will expand later on , i really want a super heroe mmorpg again , but if i need to play a simple game ( buy it ) so they can expand it to or if they only add a huge city with quests and some dungeons here and there (story mode single player and some 5-6 players dungeons ) , i will be more than happy to go ahead and buy it.

but only a few donate to a game that is still on diapers.

Kyleran

"These days people understand that there is almost no connection between succeeding on Kickstarter and actually building a game."

Truth....we've yet to see a truly successful launch of a Kickstarted MMORPG.

indigowulf

I'm beyond excited for this! I pledged to the KS, I'll be in the first wave when other support options come available. They are working hard, spending their own money, many even quit solid jobs to work on this full time. They are listening to us, on the forums, ks feedback, even daily polls on their website for our thoughts on development direction.

GabrielPR

Are we really going to get on the hype train for a game that looks like Champions online? No way no excuses, if you cant come up with a game that is better or at the same level than COH or champions online you guys need to leave that theme alone. You guys could make a survivor game, i dont think there are enough of those out there ( LMAO)

GladDog

GabrielPR said:

Are we really going to get on the hype train for a game that looks like Champions online? No way no excuses, if you cant come up with a game that is better or at the same level than COH or champions online you guys need to leave that theme alone. You guys could make a survivor game, i dont think there are enough of those out there ( LMAO)

First off, the game is only now approaching its first year in development, with a dev team of 10.  CoH was in development for 3 years with a team the size of a pro football team.  I think the SoH team will have a tiny bit more polish on the game by the time they release.  At least they are releasing progress reports.  People were saying the same thing about Pantheon when they released a pre-alpha video.  But they have progressed strongly, and so will SoH.

Second of all, without the funds from a kickstarter they needed to scale back.  It won't release with a level cap of 50, probably more like 20-25.  I doubt they were planning on higher than 30 even with a successful KS.

Third of all, the game is going to be based on CoH, not CO.  don't get me wrong; CO was a great but buggy game in alpha, but Cryptic proceeded to neuter it slowly but surely through beta to release.  But all of the SoH devs are CoH alumni, and they want their game to resemble CoH as much as they can without getting sued.

I don't really think there is a hype train on this project, although there are a lot of people checking it out.  I'm going to invest in the Kickstarter, but I know a lot of peeps won't and that is fine.  I fully expect this game to surprise a lot of people when it releases.  Hopefully the good kind of surprise! O.o

Emeraq

I recently decided to give DCUO a try and have been enjoying it a bit, so when I learned about this it piqued my interest. all except for this one piece "we’ll develop a smaller game at the beginning and then expand it using subscription revenues to become the game we originally planned. This allows our supporters to experience the game during development, and to have more input into the direction that we take. The biggest change we are making is to limit the environments we will develop before launch."

I'm curious why supporters would be okay with this, yet folks hammer a game like Shroud of the Avatar for their 40.00 sale price while it's still under construction as well?, In my view a subscription fee is going to milk more out of you over time than a one time fee (I'm not going to touch SOTA's shop, I won't buy anything from it so I'm focusing just on the one time fee vs subscription), so what gives?

maskedweasel

I still can't get past the terrible premise and name.  But more importantly, the game itself has a long way to go with several other similar games in development.  

You have to ask yourself, what does this game do different?  More aptly, if we're cloning CoH with an updated engine...  is that really going to be good enough.

CoH was a great game, but it was a great game because they had new content consistently.  They created an engine that allowed for you to build your own content.  Even with all of that , it was too heavily instanced which was just one of its major pitfalls.

A lot of people use nostalgia to gauge what they think they want.  I played CoX for years...  but if we're talking about an MMO in todays market... a graphical update is the least of which it needs.

Success for something like this is going to have to be based on a vastly sliding scale.  We have at minimum 3 "similarly" premised games here, all planning to release in the next couple years.  Hopefully there's room for all of them,  but -- as it stands now, if they put up the kickstarter again, it would go unfunded.  There isn't nearly enough information, or even specific detail on any of these games to truly back them in my opinion.

Truvidien88

It looks like Flight will be the primary travel power for SoH. Was hoping they would give us more options in the beginning.. I haven't heard or seen any other videos showcasing a speedster or someone with super jump. I'm sure they'll add this in overtime but other options at start would be nice.

GladDog

Truvidien88 said:

It looks like Flight will be the primary travel power for SoH. Was hoping they would give us more options in the beginning.. I haven't heard or seen any other videos showcasing a speedster or someone with super jump. I'm sure they'll add this in overtime but other options at start would be nice.

Flight and Super Speed for sure with be in the game at release, and they really want to include Teleport, and I think they will get that done too.  Super Jump/ Acrobatics will probably be a bit down the line, since that requires a lot of animation work.

cheeseontoast

I was a backer, think it's a good idea to focus on a smaller launch game., CoH vets are desperate to get hold of anything remoetly CoH like.. the kickstarter and the additional goals mumbo-jumbo can be a distraction :P

esc-joconnor

Truvidien88 said:

I'm hoping for the best for Ship of Heroes. Still can't stand the name but I just hope the gameplay is a lot of fun as it was with City of Heroes if not better.

That's my feeling too! I really think they should consult a branding professional and maybe get a better writer.

Zaqir

Blame No Man's Sky and Star Citizen. I don't want to use kickstarter so you can show me "interior art assetts" Show unique,exciting gameplay features to get me hyped and into the game. Without those I see no reason to invest. IE do the work, make the game, don't try and do the old SOE route of selling unfinished garbage. I am not going to buy a car from you now if it doesn't drive because you never made tires or an engine etc. The same for an MMO. Impress me with what you actually have and not what you might make if everything goes right.

Sovrath

maskedweasel said:

I still can't get past the terrible premise and name. 

yeah, I agree, it's just weird.

Let's take a space ship and put super heroes aboard. I suppose I thought that "it must be a comics thing".