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A lot, "a lot" is roughly number of CSE updates we've seen over the last few of weeks (30 plus youtube videos alone). It's almost like they planned for this or something (stirs his pot). After being in a lull (by their standards) for a few months it's nice to see CSE firing in all cylinders. It would be impossible to cover everything, or even almost everything CSE has been showing us so I'll have to go with...bullet points! How exciting!
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Some of the dev team have done it with DAoC a decade ago and now we get a kind of remastered edition with new tech, improved mechanics and a hell of a lot new ideas.
On a side note the Necro stream event was awesome. Those building tricks and how it works out once you create a whole castle to defend from those dem hibbis ehm....Danans who think they mighty will help to defend the realm for years to come.
One thing... release the freaking game already! I don't care if Mark J. has to order the coders and artists to get a mandatory intravenous infusion of energy drinks. Finish the game! ASAP!
edit: either my browser is effd up or something is broken with the br command. Can't seem to format the text with enter during writing the way I want it to look like in the end without having some br inside the text.
PS If you don't have 1h+ for Ben, you can let Mr Donkey summarize that class stream for you:
What is it the game is going to do that warrants any notion of greatness or worth hype?
The ability shapes is an interesting take on a sort of FFXI Renkai system but does not appear to be using other players only a soloist design.Nobody has come remotely close to matching FFXI's Renkai system +Magic Burst and i wish someone would put that added depth into combat.
This is at least trying to do it , how in depth these abilities are remains to be seen.Example i don't like stuff that just does controlled numbers because those will never allow for skill only simple math.You need abilities that stun,slow,paralyze,debilitate and speed,gravity,knock down,knock back, ideas like that allow for skillful combat manipulation that is above and beyond simple numbers.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
You should be able to edit normally when you "enter" this via forums; Say, from "current forum activity" on the main page or (if the article is not one of 8 enlisted there) the path is bit longer: link on the top of that window ("current forum activity"; the link on the window bottom works too - "more posts") then click "Recent posts" and find the article/thread.
PS it's also handy for bookmarking (one of many MMORPG.com's buggy & broken features) - that little star next to the thread title in the list "sends" you notifications about new posts.
the skill system is a natural evolution of the DAOC old skill system from what Ive seen so far. I doubt it has inspiration from FF. In DAOC your weapon had skills and those skills had combos and also other skills that would be only usable after parry or dodge and those skills had combos attached to them. It made combat very interesting in a very old game. Each new combo hit would do something new it might be high amounts of damage a bleed slow debuff etc. Some skills were also harder to land as they had lower chances to hit but usually had a full chain of combos if you hit with it. This seems to be a very strong evolution of that.
Nanulak
There are TON's of evolutionary and revolutionary aspects of CU, from fully server side physx, to capturable islands that will/can literally be fused with your Realm’s homeland and then ripped free to be infuse with your enemies homeland. Mark and Andrew (the co-founders of City State Entertainment) have a rather specific vision for CU that the game is being built from the ground up, to be able to achieve. Also, as a truly independent game company they are finally free to build the game right, and are take full advantage of their new found freedom. But since you brought up the ability builder system, let’s focus on that.
Sadly I’m not familiar with FFXI. So I’m going to need to make a TL/DR post, to make sure we’re on the same page. But as I understand it, your "you need abilities that stun, slow, paralyze, debilitate and speed, gravity, knock down, knock back" are exactly the kinds of things CSE want us to add to our ability's, for a cost of course (and no, I don't mean cashshop's). It's going to take number crunching, imagination, and skill to truly kickass at CU.
When company's build the 40 or so ability's they will give any class, they have a behind the scenes ability builder. This works as a kind of calculator to help make sure the different ability's are balanced (or at least in the ballpark). Think of it kind of like a math equation ware all end ability's must balance out to a score of (let’s just say) 1000. If an attack will stun that should be worth some big points, but by its self probably shouldn't be worth the full 1000, so we can add qualities that will increase its score tell we hit 1000, for example, a longer duration stun or bleed effect.
Now let’s go with a 10 sec stun (which would cost worth more than a 2 sec one) and add an Area of Effect to it. That right there may push the ability’s score over 1000, but we can add a kind of flaw to it, to push it back to less than the 1000 mark, like an increased chance to miss or something like the attack now gives a tell so everyone knows it's coming. Or maybe the attacker is rooted in place until the ability ends, you get the idea.
All of these pro's and con's are part of a system that we Gamer's rarely get to see, but from what I've been told, its industry standard for (most) Gaming companies to use a system like this. CU wants to open up that hidden mechanics for all to see and use. However CU’s ability builder system will need to be more robust and refined then other companies, who use their system more as guidelines then rules. It will also need to be thoroughly integrated with their progression system, as new qualities that we now can mix with old ones, will be the main way we get stronger/more develop.
If you know of another PvP focused MMO with this level of dynamic customization, let me know.
I think Wizardry would make a 5 year old cry at his birthday party.
I never thought I would get to see a game being built, not like this anyways. The level of both communication and transparency we Backers have gotten has way surpassed any expectation I had. I know a lot about both the decisions being made, (but more importantly) I know their thought process/reasons why they're making those decisions. I can PM anyone in the company in the forums and in most cases get full conversations going. I honestly feel like I've gotten my moneys worth already, and were not even in Beta yet.
If City State Entertainment was just another MMO company out there, I believe learning what goes into make my game, would be rather disheartening. For example, ever wonder why the new expansion classes are never balanced? It's not a mistake or oversight.
There are two key things I've learned about making an MMO game from CSE. 1) Nothing is easy. 2) I learned just how truly ignorant I am when it comes to these games. It's blown my mind how much time it takes to make things, did you know it take 3 full days for an artist to get just the texturing right on a new race? Also, playing MMORPG's is NOTHING like making them. It's simply amazed me how little I knew, about thing I thought I was quit versed in. For me to keep an open mind through out this journey I've had to humble myself...quite a bit. But, as a Backer of Camelot Unchained, I couldn't be happier!