Me? I don't give a shit about being right. I'm looking forward to playing the game.
Fair enough. Personally I'm looking forward to making some cash from a game I'll likely never play but you never know. If he follows through on the refund guarantee in the Kickstarter maybe I'll even be a backer. I think this is going to be an interesting ride.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Me? I don't give a shit about being right. I'm looking forward to playing the game.
You might think its childish behaviour to go for the who-will-be-right stuff but the extremely ambitious mmorpg just never happen. They are constantly underfunded with creative directors that never even created a simple game in the past. Its extremely difficult to make these types of games even for people with huge experience.
Seen lots of people with big confidence come in and try to be mmorpg developer, guys like Mark Kern, Ryan Dancey and Curt Shilling.
Edited away my bold statement because maybe it was too much in the being right content but I promise I will put it in my signature if I get the games wrong.
Post edited by Shaigh on
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Me? I don't give a shit about being right. I'm looking forward to playing the game.
Yeah, me too. Thing is I've been waiting 3 or more years for even one of these crowd funded efforts to release a "completed" MMORPG.
My skepticism is not unwarranted since it has yet to occur.
There should be one of those games that eventually gets finished. The problem that shroud of the avatar, camelot unchained, crowfall and pantheon suffer from is living on a $10M budget, if they had $50M one of those game would be getting really close on being finished in 2017. Hard to tell if any of those games will be a huge success but all four failing to deliver on bringing promised feature won't happen.
The reason a game like elite: dangerous got finished so quickly was that it had a much smaller scope compared to crowdfunded games that aim to be MMORPG. Its not a fantastic game but Braben delivered on most of his promises.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
Me? I don't give a shit about being right. I'm looking forward to playing the game.
Yeah, me too. Thing is I've been waiting 3 or more years for even one of these crowd funded efforts to release a "completed" MMORPG.
My skepticism is not unwarranted since it has yet to occur.
There should be one of those games that eventually gets finished. The problem that shroud of the avatar, camelot unchained, crowfall and pantheon suffer from is living on a $10M budget, if they had $50M one of those game would be getting really close on being finished in 2017. Hard to tell if any of those games will be a huge success but all four failing to deliver on bringing promised feature won't happen.
The reason a game like elite: dangerous got finished so quickly was that it had a much smaller scope compared to crowdfunded games that aim to be MMORPG. Its not a fantastic game but Braben delivered on most of his promises.
Hence my questions and raised eyebrow over claims of "we have all the funding we need to finish the game" followed by "we are crowdfunding to get funding from players, private investors (TBC) before we confirm scope and budget."
You either have confirmed access to $20 to $50M in funding or you don't. Pretty black and white to me, and if you don't, you can't say you have all you need, except perhaps with the qualifier "for now."
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Assuming everyone was as informed as we are that would be correct, But Ithink it's safe to assume the vast majority of gamers are less informed,
Someone is not informed. They read someone lying about this game. They get fooled. They go to the website to buy the deceitful game. They see there is a promotion going on. They are now informed.
The thing is, they are going to advertise this promotion heavily in order to gather their marketing army. It's not somewhere hidden between the lines.
You know sometimes on some level as a consumer people have to think what are they doing with their money. I agree with a lot of your concerns when it comes down to Kickstarter and campaigns and I believe we should discuss them more. But thinking this sort of promotion is shady, while it is the exact opposite. Because right now ALL companies are doing this via 3rd-parties, but they are not telling people about it. That's shady--not being open about it.
I think there are more important issues to discuss about crowdfunding campaigns and now is a great time, because I think this game is going to attract a lot of people.
What questions are there about crowdfunding? He's already said they have a AAA game budget and are using Crowdfunding for other reasons - namely so they can self publish and not rely on game ruining publishers, and also so they can take advantage of early player testers giving good feedback who are really invested in the game. Seems ok to me? He also mentioned that if the game doesn't get made he'll return the crowdfunding money, but he also said with their current budget the game will be made regardless.
Honestly not sure why everyone is so upset about this game when they don't care about others. I don't see anything wrong with what they're doing here. My only concerns are regarding gameplay choices like combat design, but they're supposed to be revealing more details on that today or tomorrow anyway.
Actually you just said untrue things. The CEO said they did not have a budget yet. He said it right on these forums.
He said a couple of things: 1) "the amount of resources at my disposal when making this MMO are large. Comparable to other MMOs that have been made by AAA studios." (said in relation to suggestion of a shoestring budget).
and also: 2) Crowdfunding will allow us to "pull necessary capital to create the game without appealing to industry publishers"
Neither of those gives a budget, but the two statements are contradictory.
No they're not. Games get made without publishers. They only find publishers once the game is nearing completion and they're ready to roll it out.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Me? I don't give a shit about being right. I'm looking forward to playing the game.
Yeah, me too. Thing is I've been waiting 3 or more years for even one of these crowd funded efforts to release a "completed" MMORPG.
My skepticism is not unwarranted since it has yet to occur.
MMO's don't get made in 3 years. They get made in 4-6 usually.
But most have something to show and claim they have been working on it prior to the Kickstarter. Let's see what type of date this game proposes and revisit that conversation. Per your statement we should look for a delivery date of 2021 or further.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Me? I don't give a shit about being right. I'm looking forward to playing the game.
Yeah, me too. Thing is I've been waiting 3 or more years for even one of these crowd funded efforts to release a "completed" MMORPG.
My skepticism is not unwarranted since it has yet to occur.
MMO's don't get made in 3 years. They get made in 4-6 usually.
But most have something to show and claim they have been working on it prior to the Kickstarter. Let's see what type of date this game proposes and revisit that conversation. Per your statement we should look for a delivery date of 2021 or further.
And they do have something to show and claim they've been working on it for a year. Steven has even said numerous times in this thread that they specifically are holding off on the kickstarter until they reach some development milestones. Crowfall and Camelot Unchained had basically demos to show off but no real game yet. This game already has a pre-Alpha client up and running. Based on the progress so far, absolutely 2021 sounds reasonable.
Me? I don't give a shit about being right. I'm looking forward to playing the game.
Yeah, me too. Thing is I've been waiting 3 or more years for even one of these crowd funded efforts to release a "completed" MMORPG.
My skepticism is not unwarranted since it has yet to occur.
MMO's don't get made in 3 years. They get made in 4-6 usually.
But most have something to show and claim they have been working on it prior to the Kickstarter. Let's see what type of date this game proposes and revisit that conversation. Per your statement we should look for a delivery date of 2021 or further.
And they do have something to show and claim they've been working on it for a year. Steven has even said numerous times in this thread that they specifically are holding off on the kickstarter until they reach some development milestones. Crowfall and Camelot Unchained had basically demos to show off but no real game yet. This game already has a pre-Alpha client up and running. Based on the progress so far, absolutely 2021 sounds reasonable.
I would agree that 2021 would be reasonable. I'd be concerned with less than that and hope you would agree that we should be concerned with an earlier date.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Now the Whole Cash Back thing I also think is a load of BS. HOWEVER I do agree with players who refer friends to the game get a percentage of money off their Subscription for a length of time. And\OR getting a percentage of credit for the cash shop for a select time. These are very fair systems which will help take care of marketing for the game without the need to spend much money on marketing.
As for the Crowd Funding. I too find it crap and I am not a fan of it. I did Crowd Fund SOTA and hated the direction of the game towards a P2W system. Yes I believe P2W includes spending $10,000 on a player run city. That is a load of bullshit. I will not Crowd Fund Ashes of Creation no matter how much I really like this idea for a game so far.
A Much better idea than Crowd Funding this game if this game has 20 Million to 50 Million dollars of investors. Setup Pre-Orders NOW and have Early access in the pre-orders. This will give investors an idea how many units you will have before launch. YES more people will pre-order closer to launch BUT if you already have 500K units sold the investors will have a better idea of subscription numbers and a return on investment. It will not be accurate as all MMORPGs the target will change.
Lowest Package 7 days head start before launch $29.99 (Plus 1 month Sub)
Middle Package Automatic Beta Access (This includes Close Beta Phase 1 or 2) Plus 7 days head-start and 1 Month Sub $59.99
Highest Package Automatic Alpha Access (Phase 1 or 2) Plus Close Beta Phase 1 Access, Plus 7 days head-start and 1 month Sub $99.99
Now here is the kicker, You cannot get a full refund. If you ask for a refund during the Alpha phase you will only be refunded down to the lowest package. So if you start in Alpha and say after a week or 2 that Alpha testing is not for you, thats fine give you your $50 back and then you just have the lowest package. BUT you cannot purchase Alpha access again, You can purchase Beta access if you want but you cannot refund Beta Access after you start to play in Beta.
Assuming everyone was as informed as we are that would be correct, But Ithink it's safe to assume the vast majority of gamers are less informed,
Someone is not informed. They read someone lying about this game. They get fooled. They go to the website to buy the deceitful game. They see there is a promotion going on. They are now informed.
The thing is, they are going to advertise this promotion heavily in order to gather their marketing army. It's not somewhere hidden between the lines.
You know sometimes on some level as a consumer people have to think what are they doing with their money. I agree with a lot of your concerns when it comes down to Kickstarter and campaigns and I believe we should discuss them more. But thinking this sort of promotion is shady, while it is the exact opposite. Because right now ALL companies are doing this via 3rd-parties, but they are not telling people about it. That's shady--not being open about it.
I think there are more important issues to discuss about crowdfunding campaigns and now is a great time, because I think this game is going to attract a lot of people.
What questions are there about crowdfunding? He's already said they have a AAA game budget and are using Crowdfunding for other reasons - namely so they can self publish and not rely on game ruining publishers, and also so they can take advantage of early player testers giving good feedback who are really invested in the game. Seems ok to me? He also mentioned that if the game doesn't get made he'll return the crowdfunding money, but he also said with their current budget the game will be made regardless.
Honestly not sure why everyone is so upset about this game when they don't care about others. I don't see anything wrong with what they're doing here. My only concerns are regarding gameplay choices like combat design, but they're supposed to be revealing more details on that today or tomorrow anyway.
Actually you just said untrue things. The CEO said they did not have a budget yet. He said it right on these forums.
He said a couple of things: 1) "the amount of resources at my disposal when making this MMO are large. Comparable to other MMOs that have been made by AAA studios." (said in relation to suggestion of a shoestring budget).
and also: 2) Crowdfunding will allow us to "pull necessary capital to create the game without appealing to industry publishers"
Neither of those gives a budget, but the two statements are contradictory.
No they're not. Games get made without publishers. They only find publishers once the game is nearing completion and they're ready to roll it out.
Sure, but the guy said he needs to crowdfund to "pull necessary capital to CREATE the game" and in virtually the same breath says he already has enough funds to make a AAA mmo: it can't be both.
Assuming everyone was as informed as we are that would be correct, But Ithink it's safe to assume the vast majority of gamers are less informed,
Someone is not informed. They read someone lying about this game. They get fooled. They go to the website to buy the deceitful game. They see there is a promotion going on. They are now informed.
The thing is, they are going to advertise this promotion heavily in order to gather their marketing army. It's not somewhere hidden between the lines.
You know sometimes on some level as a consumer people have to think what are they doing with their money. I agree with a lot of your concerns when it comes down to Kickstarter and campaigns and I believe we should discuss them more. But thinking this sort of promotion is shady, while it is the exact opposite. Because right now ALL companies are doing this via 3rd-parties, but they are not telling people about it. That's shady--not being open about it.
I think there are more important issues to discuss about crowdfunding campaigns and now is a great time, because I think this game is going to attract a lot of people.
What questions are there about crowdfunding? He's already said they have a AAA game budget and are using Crowdfunding for other reasons - namely so they can self publish and not rely on game ruining publishers, and also so they can take advantage of early player testers giving good feedback who are really invested in the game. Seems ok to me? He also mentioned that if the game doesn't get made he'll return the crowdfunding money, but he also said with their current budget the game will be made regardless.
Honestly not sure why everyone is so upset about this game when they don't care about others. I don't see anything wrong with what they're doing here. My only concerns are regarding gameplay choices like combat design, but they're supposed to be revealing more details on that today or tomorrow anyway.
Actually you just said untrue things. The CEO said they did not have a budget yet. He said it right on these forums.
He said a couple of things: 1) "the amount of resources at my disposal when making this MMO are large. Comparable to other MMOs that have been made by AAA studios." (said in relation to suggestion of a shoestring budget).
and also: 2) Crowdfunding will allow us to "pull necessary capital to create the game without appealing to industry publishers"
Neither of those gives a budget, but the two statements are contradictory.
No they're not. Games get made without publishers. They only find publishers once the game is nearing completion and they're ready to roll it out.
Sure, but the guy said he needs to crowdfund to "pull necessary capital to CREATE the game" and in virtually the same breath says he already has enough funds to make a AAA mmo: it can't be both.
You're reading into this too much. Every company that isn't NCSoft or Blizzard needs publisher money for their game, and in turn the publisher's need developers to lease them their games so they can make money off of us. This is how the industry works. Ashes will need this money as well. They won't need it now, but eventually they will. Publishers cover a ton of costs from servers, to community management, payment systems, customer service. That's also a ton of employees to hire. That's point 1.
Typically there's some tension between developers and publishers who have differing interests. We've all seen some of our favorite games take a bad turn because of one or both parties. I've certainly felt frustrated plenty of times as a gamer about this, and clearly so has Steven, so he'd like to avoid having to go to publishers (something we've seen with other in development games recently). So that's point 2.
I think that should be pretty clear? There's no conspiracy here. His statement was quite clear.
Edit: One thing that just occurred to me is they mentioned wanting to take advantage of the vocal feedback from an engaged testing community. Obviously this has been an advantage for other games, but to do that you need servers, community management, CS, etc. These are all things most games don't do publicly, and thus don't need until a game is ready for beta testing. When your pre-alpha, alpha, and initial beta testing is all done privately in house by employees and their friends and family, that's much cheaper to do at the cost of selling your soul to outside publishers later for launch.
So when you make the choice to take publishing in house via crowd-funding, you may need the money (and services) you'd otherwise get from a publisher earlier, because you're actually using those services earlier. Because you can't exactly get away with crowd funding and then keep all your backers in the dark until public beta tests a few years from now lol.
So it's a trade-off. Unless you're one of the big guys, you have tough decisions to make.
Assuming everyone was as informed as we are that would be correct, But Ithink it's safe to assume the vast majority of gamers are less informed,
Someone is not informed. They read someone lying about this game. They get fooled. They go to the website to buy the deceitful game. They see there is a promotion going on. They are now informed.
The thing is, they are going to advertise this promotion heavily in order to gather their marketing army. It's not somewhere hidden between the lines.
You know sometimes on some level as a consumer people have to think what are they doing with their money. I agree with a lot of your concerns when it comes down to Kickstarter and campaigns and I believe we should discuss them more. But thinking this sort of promotion is shady, while it is the exact opposite. Because right now ALL companies are doing this via 3rd-parties, but they are not telling people about it. That's shady--not being open about it.
I think there are more important issues to discuss about crowdfunding campaigns and now is a great time, because I think this game is going to attract a lot of people.
What questions are there about crowdfunding? He's already said they have a AAA game budget and are using Crowdfunding for other reasons - namely so they can self publish and not rely on game ruining publishers, and also so they can take advantage of early player testers giving good feedback who are really invested in the game. Seems ok to me? He also mentioned that if the game doesn't get made he'll return the crowdfunding money, but he also said with their current budget the game will be made regardless.
Honestly not sure why everyone is so upset about this game when they don't care about others. I don't see anything wrong with what they're doing here. My only concerns are regarding gameplay choices like combat design, but they're supposed to be revealing more details on that today or tomorrow anyway.
Actually you just said untrue things. The CEO said they did not have a budget yet. He said it right on these forums.
He said a couple of things: 1) "the amount of resources at my disposal when making this MMO are large. Comparable to other MMOs that have been made by AAA studios." (said in relation to suggestion of a shoestring budget).
and also: 2) Crowdfunding will allow us to "pull necessary capital to create the game without appealing to industry publishers"
Neither of those gives a budget, but the two statements are contradictory.
No they're not. Games get made without publishers. They only find publishers once the game is nearing completion and they're ready to roll it out.
Sure, but the guy said he needs to crowdfund to "pull necessary capital to CREATE the game" and in virtually the same breath says he already has enough funds to make a AAA mmo: it can't be both.
You're reading into this too much. Every company that isn't NCSoft or Blizzard needs publisher money for their game, and in turn the publisher's need developers to lease them their games so they can make money off of us. This is how the industry works. Ashes will need this money as well. They won't need it now, but eventually they will. Publishers cover a ton of costs from servers, to community management, payment systems, customer service. That's also a ton of employees to hire. That's point 1.
Typically there's some tension between developers and publishers who have differing interests. We've all seen some of our favorite games take a bad turn because of one or both parties. I've certainly felt frustrated plenty of times as a gamer about this, and clearly so has Steven, so he'd like to avoid having to go to publishers (something we've seen with other in development games recently). So that's point 2.
I think that should be pretty clear? There's no conspiracy here. His statement was quite clear.
Edit: One thing that just occurred to me is they mentioned wanting to take advantage of the vocal feedback from an engaged testing community. Obviously this has been an advantage for other games, but to do that you need servers, community management, CS, etc. These are all things most games don't do publicly, and thus don't need until a game is ready for beta testing. When your pre-alpha, alpha, and initial beta testing is all done privately in house by employees and their friends and family, that's much cheaper to do at the cost of selling your soul to outside publishers later for launch.
So when you make the choice to take publishing in house via crowd-funding, you may need the money (and services) you'd otherwise get from a publisher earlier, because you're actually using those services earlier. Because you can't exactly get away with crowd funding and then keep all your backers in the dark until public beta tests a few years from now lol.
So it's a trade-off. Unless you're one of the big guys, you have tough decisions to make.
Your post highlights one of the key problems with crowdfunding: the lack of transparency. I appreciate that you took the time to explain your thoughts on the matter, but your assumptions about how much things will cost are too vague to justify the contradiction of management saying they have both a AAA budget and need to crowdfund.
But I don't think its that important atm to be honest: the pre-alpha footage looked great so if they can bring that vision to fruition it will be awesome. Plus the ideas about nodes and so forth sound really fresh; its the kind of thing I've wanted to see in games. I just hope the crowdfunding part doesn't end up as a massive p2w scam like in CoE and SC, and of course I hope it actually gets made and released!
Assuming everyone was as informed as we are that would be correct, But Ithink it's safe to assume the vast majority of gamers are less informed,
Someone is not informed. They read someone lying about this game. They get fooled. They go to the website to buy the deceitful game. They see there is a promotion going on. They are now informed.
The thing is, they are going to advertise this promotion heavily in order to gather their marketing army. It's not somewhere hidden between the lines.
You know sometimes on some level as a consumer people have to think what are they doing with their money. I agree with a lot of your concerns when it comes down to Kickstarter and campaigns and I believe we should discuss them more. But thinking this sort of promotion is shady, while it is the exact opposite. Because right now ALL companies are doing this via 3rd-parties, but they are not telling people about it. That's shady--not being open about it.
I think there are more important issues to discuss about crowdfunding campaigns and now is a great time, because I think this game is going to attract a lot of people.
What questions are there about crowdfunding? He's already said they have a AAA game budget and are using Crowdfunding for other reasons - namely so they can self publish and not rely on game ruining publishers, and also so they can take advantage of early player testers giving good feedback who are really invested in the game. Seems ok to me? He also mentioned that if the game doesn't get made he'll return the crowdfunding money, but he also said with their current budget the game will be made regardless.
Honestly not sure why everyone is so upset about this game when they don't care about others. I don't see anything wrong with what they're doing here. My only concerns are regarding gameplay choices like combat design, but they're supposed to be revealing more details on that today or tomorrow anyway.
Actually you just said untrue things. The CEO said they did not have a budget yet. He said it right on these forums.
He said a couple of things: 1) "the amount of resources at my disposal when making this MMO are large. Comparable to other MMOs that have been made by AAA studios." (said in relation to suggestion of a shoestring budget).
and also: 2) Crowdfunding will allow us to "pull necessary capital to create the game without appealing to industry publishers"
Neither of those gives a budget, but the two statements are contradictory.
No they're not. Games get made without publishers. They only find publishers once the game is nearing completion and they're ready to roll it out.
Sure, but the guy said he needs to crowdfund to "pull necessary capital to CREATE the game" and in virtually the same breath says he already has enough funds to make a AAA mmo: it can't be both.
You're reading into this too much. Every company that isn't NCSoft or Blizzard needs publisher money for their game, and in turn the publisher's need developers to lease them their games so they can make money off of us. This is how the industry works. Ashes will need this money as well. They won't need it now, but eventually they will. Publishers cover a ton of costs from servers, to community management, payment systems, customer service. That's also a ton of employees to hire. That's point 1.
Typically there's some tension between developers and publishers who have differing interests. We've all seen some of our favorite games take a bad turn because of one or both parties. I've certainly felt frustrated plenty of times as a gamer about this, and clearly so has Steven, so he'd like to avoid having to go to publishers (something we've seen with other in development games recently). So that's point 2.
I think that should be pretty clear? There's no conspiracy here. His statement was quite clear.
Edit: One thing that just occurred to me is they mentioned wanting to take advantage of the vocal feedback from an engaged testing community. Obviously this has been an advantage for other games, but to do that you need servers, community management, CS, etc. These are all things most games don't do publicly, and thus don't need until a game is ready for beta testing. When your pre-alpha, alpha, and initial beta testing is all done privately in house by employees and their friends and family, that's much cheaper to do at the cost of selling your soul to outside publishers later for launch.
So when you make the choice to take publishing in house via crowd-funding, you may need the money (and services) you'd otherwise get from a publisher earlier, because you're actually using those services earlier. Because you can't exactly get away with crowd funding and then keep all your backers in the dark until public beta tests a few years from now lol.
So it's a trade-off. Unless you're one of the big guys, you have tough decisions to make.
Reasonable explanation, might even agree except founder stated earlier in this thread he can't confirm the final feature set or budget until he knows how much money they'll have to work with once the crowdfunding and private investor funding (which is likely dependent on the success of the CF effort) has been secured.
So the short of it is they don't have all of the funding to build the complete game, but do have enough to build some MVP version if necessary.
Just the way I view it and the company has said nothing to refute, such as say confirming financing in hand plus projected goals. If I start seeing figures in the $20-$50M range then I'll start believing it can be done.
Otherwise I'll remain skeptical until they launch the complete game. (EA doesn't count)
BTW, I'm not singling this title out, I'm skeptical that any studio can deliver what I consider a full featured MMORPG on a low budget, though Albion online may prove me wrong soon.
But even there, you can see where the lack of budget impacted the graphics significantly, so not really a full featured game up to modern production standards.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
You're reading into this too much. Every company that isn't NCSoft or Blizzard needs publisher money for their game...
How much do you think they are going to raise on Kickstarter?
My best guess is that they will need $20M+ to deliver on all the promises. Maybe I'm wrong and if so the CEO can come back once he has a budget and explain why. If they raise a million on KS it would be a success. So are you trying to tell me that they somehow have the internal resources to get $20M but just can;t scrape up the last $1M?
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
You're reading into this too much. Every company that isn't NCSoft or Blizzard needs publisher money for their game...
How much do you think they are going to raise on Kickstarter?
My best guess is that they will need $20M+ to deliver on all the promises. Maybe I'm wrong and if so the CEO can come back once he has a budget and explain why. If they raise a million on KS it would be a success. So are you trying to tell me that they somehow have the internal resources to get $20M but just can;t scrape up the last $1M?
That's the red flag. If the KS / private investor goals were realistic they would ask for like $5M on the KS, which might trigger another $5-10M in private funding, and then I'd start believing in "the vision"
See how DF went if you want a real example of how underfunded development usually turns out, and I think even they had access to more funds than most indie devs claim. (not saying Ashes team doesn't have more, we have no idea at present)
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
That's the red flag. If the KS / private investor goals were realistic they would ask for like $5M on the KS, which might trigger another $5-10M in private funding, and then I'd start believing in "the vision"
See how much money you can get in, setup a budget and plan development accordingly.
1 Publishers know little of the game and just hire some nobody's to give you support,lame and why crappy support is often. 2 I will not support any type of cash shop 3 I do not condone early access because every single mmorpg has been designed to be a RACE and why players play them as such,so being left behind because someone paid money first is not an option i will support. 4 Nobody used to ask gamer's for money,it is such an easy thing to do now that every single developer will do it weather they need the money or not.Make your game then sell it to us,if yo udo not have confidence you can do that then guess what,i don't have confidence in your business.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I am really bummed out,i just knew there had to be a catch just the same as COE.It is really BS that this site was in on it as well,pretending they just have some cool game they want to show us when they knew all along it was a partnership/agenda. I really understand this site now,every game that shows up here has an agenda/partnership with this site based on advertising.
I was at IGN yesterday and the same bullshit,they had a couple guys come on telling us they have this cool idea about creating some kind of library or something for old games.Of course the whole agenda was that they partnered with IGN to promote their project to get funding from people.It was so blatantly obvious that even the developer was sort of laughing at the IGN guy as he was definitely putting on his salesmen act.
Watch at 6:20 minutes onwards and i am certain everyone can tell how blatant the guy in the beard is trying to sell this so called "non profit" idea..sigh.This is the sort of nonsense i hate.This is directly related to what this site is doing on a daily basis.Advertising belongs in the advertising section,heart felt gaming passion belongs in the articles.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
See. . clearly with your low post count and monetary incentive you are a paid White Knight. kidding. . seriously
Slapshot is very skeptical but is generally correct. Even if the posts lean to the negative it is because there has been so much trash touted as the next coming. Anytime a game offers referral links etc. and someone defends the game it always puts the defense into question. "This game is awesome and these guys are haters. . here. . try it out with my link and I'll send you in game currency".
Personally, I just wait until games are finished now to make judgments. I did spend a long time trying to warn people about possible scams. The one I was the most wrong and correct about would have been Xsyon. It wasn't a scam. . in that I was wrong. . but it also dried up pre-beta. Mortal Online. . etc. etc.
I think using referrals are okay and help to get word out but it can work to trigger red flags for people in an area that is pretty heavy with empty promises. My guess is that the benefits will outweigh the negatives, so from a company stand-point I could see still using it. Then if the game is good the skeptics will give it a try.
Aethaeryn Totally agree with you. I want to be optimistic about this game, but there is a major red flag for me. First of all majority/most of the employees are ex-Daybreak/SOE online employees. This should be a major red flag for anyone.
Daybreak is notorious for bad game productions, you have to look no further than their current EQ1/EQ2 producer Holly Longdale. Did we also forget these are the same employees that worked under John Smedley and company.
Second the founder has no experience in the game industry, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. Good in the sense that he knows how to run a business, and bad as in no experience in the industry.
Third, transparency is a key issue for me. We will have to see how transparent these folks are in their development.
Comments
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Seen lots of people with big confidence come in and try to be mmorpg developer, guys like Mark Kern, Ryan Dancey and Curt Shilling.
Edited away my bold statement because maybe it was too much in the being right content but I promise I will put it in my signature if I get the games wrong.
My skepticism is not unwarranted since it has yet to occur.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
The reason a game like elite: dangerous got finished so quickly was that it had a much smaller scope compared to crowdfunded games that aim to be MMORPG. Its not a fantastic game but Braben delivered on most of his promises.
You either have confirmed access to $20 to $50M in funding or you don't. Pretty black and white to me, and if you don't, you can't say you have all you need, except perhaps with the qualifier "for now."
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
#1 Getting 15% cash back on what friends they refer spend in either the cash shop or in a subscription.
#2 Being Crowd Funded
Now the Whole Cash Back thing I also think is a load of BS. HOWEVER I do agree with players who refer friends to the game get a percentage of money off their Subscription for a length of time. And\OR getting a percentage of credit for the cash shop for a select time. These are very fair systems which will help take care of marketing for the game without the need to spend much money on marketing.
As for the Crowd Funding. I too find it crap and I am not a fan of it. I did Crowd Fund SOTA and hated the direction of the game towards a P2W system. Yes I believe P2W includes spending $10,000 on a player run city. That is a load of bullshit. I will not Crowd Fund Ashes of Creation no matter how much I really like this idea for a game so far.
A Much better idea than Crowd Funding this game if this game has 20 Million to 50 Million dollars of investors. Setup Pre-Orders NOW and have Early access in the pre-orders. This will give investors an idea how many units you will have before launch. YES more people will pre-order closer to launch BUT if you already have 500K units sold the investors will have a better idea of subscription numbers and a return on investment. It will not be accurate as all MMORPGs the target will change.
- Lowest Package 7 days head start before launch $29.99 (Plus 1 month Sub)
- Middle Package Automatic Beta Access (This includes Close Beta Phase 1 or 2) Plus 7 days head-start and 1 Month Sub $59.99
- Highest Package Automatic Alpha Access (Phase 1 or 2) Plus Close Beta Phase 1 Access, Plus 7 days head-start and 1 month Sub $99.99
Now here is the kicker, You cannot get a full refund. If you ask for a refund during the Alpha phase you will only be refunded down to the lowest package. So if you start in Alpha and say after a week or 2 that Alpha testing is not for you, thats fine give you your $50 back and then you just have the lowest package. BUT you cannot purchase Alpha access again, You can purchase Beta access if you want but you cannot refund Beta Access after you start to play in Beta.Also Taxes will apply.
Sure, but the guy said he needs to crowdfund to "pull necessary capital to CREATE the game" and in virtually the same breath says he already has enough funds to make a AAA mmo: it can't be both.
Typically there's some tension between developers and publishers who have differing interests. We've all seen some of our favorite games take a bad turn because of one or both parties. I've certainly felt frustrated plenty of times as a gamer about this, and clearly so has Steven, so he'd like to avoid having to go to publishers (something we've seen with other in development games recently). So that's point 2.
I think that should be pretty clear? There's no conspiracy here. His statement was quite clear.
Edit: One thing that just occurred to me is they mentioned wanting to take advantage of the vocal feedback from an engaged testing community. Obviously this has been an advantage for other games, but to do that you need servers, community management, CS, etc. These are all things most games don't do publicly, and thus don't need until a game is ready for beta testing. When your pre-alpha, alpha, and initial beta testing is all done privately in house by employees and their friends and family, that's much cheaper to do at the cost of selling your soul to outside publishers later for launch.
So when you make the choice to take publishing in house via crowd-funding, you may need the money (and services) you'd otherwise get from a publisher earlier, because you're actually using those services earlier. Because you can't exactly get away with crowd funding and then keep all your backers in the dark until public beta tests a few years from now lol.
So it's a trade-off. Unless you're one of the big guys, you have tough decisions to make.
Your post highlights one of the key problems with crowdfunding: the lack of transparency. I appreciate that you took the time to explain your thoughts on the matter, but your assumptions about how much things will cost are too vague to justify the contradiction of management saying they have both a AAA budget and need to crowdfund.
But I don't think its that important atm to be honest: the pre-alpha footage looked great so if they can bring that vision to fruition it will be awesome. Plus the ideas about nodes and so forth sound really fresh; its the kind of thing I've wanted to see in games. I just hope the crowdfunding part doesn't end up as a massive p2w scam like in CoE and SC, and of course I hope it actually gets made and released!
So the short of it is they don't have all of the funding to build the complete game, but do have enough to build some MVP version if necessary.
Just the way I view it and the company has said nothing to refute, such as say confirming financing in hand plus projected goals. If I start seeing figures in the $20-$50M range then I'll start believing it can be done.
Otherwise I'll remain skeptical until they launch the complete game. (EA doesn't count)
BTW, I'm not singling this title out, I'm skeptical that any studio can deliver what I consider a full featured MMORPG on a low budget, though Albion online may prove me wrong soon.
But even there, you can see where the lack of budget impacted the graphics significantly, so not really a full featured game up to modern production standards.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
My best guess is that they will need $20M+ to deliver on all the promises. Maybe I'm wrong and if so the CEO can come back once he has a budget and explain why. If they raise a million on KS it would be a success. So are you trying to tell me that they somehow have the internal resources to get $20M but just can;t scrape up the last $1M?
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
See how DF went if you want a real example of how underfunded development usually turns out, and I think even they had access to more funds than most indie devs claim. (not saying Ashes team doesn't have more, we have no idea at present)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
What part is "red flag" about it?
2 I will not support any type of cash shop
3 I do not condone early access because every single mmorpg has been designed to be a RACE and why players play them as such,so being left behind because someone paid money first is not an option i will support.
4 Nobody used to ask gamer's for money,it is such an easy thing to do now that every single developer will do it weather they need the money or not.Make your game then sell it to us,if yo udo not have confidence you can do that then guess what,i don't have confidence in your business.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I really understand this site now,every game that shows up here has an agenda/partnership with this site based on advertising.
I was at IGN yesterday and the same bullshit,they had a couple guys come on telling us they have this cool idea about creating some kind of library or something for old games.Of course the whole agenda was that they partnered with IGN to promote their project to get funding from people.It was so blatantly obvious that even the developer was sort of laughing at the IGN guy as he was definitely putting on his salesmen act.
Watch at 6:20 minutes onwards and i am certain everyone can tell how blatant the guy in the beard is trying to sell this so called "non profit" idea..sigh.This is the sort of nonsense i hate.This is directly related to what this site is doing on a daily basis.Advertising belongs in the advertising section,heart felt gaming passion belongs in the articles.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Aethaeryn Totally agree with you. I want to be optimistic about this game, but there is a major red flag for me. First of all majority/most of the employees are ex-Daybreak/SOE online employees. This should be a major red flag for anyone.
Daybreak is notorious for bad game productions, you have to look no further than their current EQ1/EQ2 producer Holly Longdale. Did we also forget these are the same employees that worked under John Smedley and company.
Second the founder has no experience in the game industry, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. Good in the sense that he knows how to run a business, and bad as in no experience in the industry.
Third, transparency is a key issue for me. We will have to see how transparent these folks are in their development.