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[Preview] Neo's Land: Aiming at MMO Roots
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
If you haven't heard of Neo's Land, you will be intrigued by our two exclusive features, introducing an independent and fan-built MMO where players make all the decisions. Read on and then leave us your thoughts in the comments.
Neo’s Land is aiming squarely at the roots of MMORPG design, and will be a High Fantasy game utilizing the Atavism Online Engine and Unity3D. Atavism will provide the server engine, while Unity3D handles the top layer graphics. The beauty of this combo is that Unity at its core allows for cross-platform design. Neo’s Land can and will wind up across both computers and maybe even mobile devices. The Atavism Engine is a proprietary server software platform that ties directly into Unity3D. But rather than just go in blindly and make the game based on what they believe MMO gamers want, NeoJac is actively integrating players and prospective members of their community into the development of the game itself.
Read more of Bill Murphy's Neo's Land Aiming at MMO Roots.
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Comments
Sounds very ambitious. Some of it sounds great like no instance housing and no auction house (though I can go either way on auction house)
I do wonder who wants a game with both pvp and instanced (safe) dungeons. I liked the old days of going into a dungeon and finding other players already inside.
I will never support freeloaders, no more subsidized gaming.
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Steam: Neph
Did the devs ever ask for player funding for Islands of War? That would be news to me. I thought this was their first time to appeal to the general population for funding.
Marketing 101,tell the gamer's it is their game and their creation.I simply do not like when devs pull off that lame marketing.
Even a voting system is a fail because you could have an idea voted on by 40% leaving 60% of the players not liking the ideas.
When i game,the last thing i want to do is keep checking for some new vote on content,i never used it in EQ2 either on the dungeon builder idea.
How well simple termed content ideas are has to actually be seen in game,otherwise just marketing talk.This is why when mentioning a gimmick you need to go in great detail about that gimmick so we know exactly what it is and WHY it is.
Example,i originally thought NW's idea was so cool ,i couldn't wait to get into the game and try it out.When i finally did get in i was not impressed,i never made one quest,the tools were simply not good enough and the results by player built content was nothing special,just tons of repeated ideas,locations ect ect.It was simply repeated content with a different quest heading.
I prefer a developer to make the content unless you are going to allow players full access to the game engine.Also voting is a waste of time,better to just have the game create instances of player made content,that is the ONLY time i care to see instances.Perhaps cycle content every 2 months it gets rotated out for new content.
No levels or Ah,was spun to sound like a positive,it might be a total negative,again we need to hear the reasoning behind it ,the REAL truth.The levels might be removed to eliminate having to make gear and spells.abilities for every level,AH might be removed to simply save time on development and not have to have a robust data system carried by the servers.
I realize it is every developers job to sell their product but we need details on proclaimed ideas.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I didn't indicate they asked for funding on the previous project. Simply that they attempted a similar project and it failed to come to fruition. That makes me suspect of whether or not they are truly capable of seeing this project through to completion especially since it appears even larger in scope. If you have examples of MMORPGs that they have successfully finished I would love to hear about them.
Steam: Neph
Well that is true with the past. The client had some issues and was difficult to work with. We are having much better progress with Unity as the client. Also fortunately the effort used is not a lost, of which can still be used and lessons learned.
I do agree that given how MMORPG's startup and such, there is a high risk of succeeding and of how others have failed. I hope to have you keep checking to see how well we keep on doing.
Sign off,
Hamilton
That being said, I don't know if lack of releasing Islands of War should be much of a red flag for whether this developer will deliver. If they had scrapped multiple MMO endeavors in the past, then I would definitely also be wary. But for an indie developer company to redesign their game and switch engines in this instance makes sense to me. The devs have discussed their rationale on their Unity forum threads previously. I'd recommend reading those and even asking more about it, if you still have questions.
That all makes sense and as someone who was previously interested in IoW I'll have to check it out. I genuinely do hope they're successful and hopefully my tone was not too negative. I just wanted to share the info I did know. I think the idea is great and extremely ambitious. Hopefully with their new tools they will not run into the same problems.
Steam: Neph
Sign off,
Hamilton
www.neojac.com
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So, is this going to be yet another FFA PvP sandbox? If so then no thank you; believe it or not some people actually do like to tend their digital vegetable gardens without worrying about taking a fireball to the face from some 'PvPer' who is for all intents and purposes just a hair away from being a full fledged sociopath.
Also, I may be wrong but this really sounds like the devs are simply going to create the bare minimum of content & then rely on players for the rest. Newsflash: Just because your game is a sandbox doesn't mean there shouldn't be a good amount of PvE and / or story content there as well. Sandbox =/= empty, open world.
Did you even read the article? Where did you get FFA PvP from? They specifically discussed safe zones, guards, insurance for items to prevent loss, etc and that they were still finalizing a PvP system based on community feedback because they know it is a tricky issue to satisfy everyone.
Steam: Neph
This to me sounds like a updated Ultima Online with a much less known world. And if they aim at UO type of numbers i think they will do well.
Not my type of game but that is the beauty of the current market, it is a true indie-market now. Anyone can take a shot a making a game and self-publish it.
This have been a good conversation
The beauty of this combo is that Unity at its core allows for cross-platform design. Neo’s Land can and will wind up across both computers and maybe even mobile devices.
Sorry no thanks.
If you don't worry about it, it's not a problem.
No auction house is definitely going back to the good 'ole days. When I first started out playing MMORPG's, the crafting was a lot of fun and rewarding. Then WoW came along and auction houses really became popular. While it was nice to simplify shopping so more time could be spent adventuring, it sort of degraded the crafting experience. Most games I played lately have proved that it is a complete waste of time and effort to indulge in crafting while adventuring. I'm usually better off just selling loot on the auction house and making money that way. Because before you can craft, you need to gather resources and you usually need 3 or 4 different ingredients to make each item and you need more then one of those items. So space in your inventory quickly runs out. And now with Pay to Play model, you have to spend $25 on average to get a decent starting set of storage. Oh opps, need more bank space ... another $25. You have to have a good income in real life to afford to start your in-game business.
Now I know some games even these days still use player shops especially the Korean developed games but their crafting systems still suck. So I'll be interested in what Neo's Land has to offer and how it differs from the current offerings.