This looks like a repeat of Greedmonger sprinkled with StarCitizen.

Risc1911 · May 2017

Another Kickstarters with grand ideas and dreams. The guy behind the Project, Steven Shariff, is about as shady as Jason Appleton from Greedmonger and as good a salesman as Chris Roberts. Shariff knows how to market a product and make great looking presentations from his MLM experience.

He is essentially doing what Chris Roberts did when he said Star Citizen will revolutionize PC gaming and is going to be the BDSSE (Best Damn Space Sim Ever, a phrase Chris coined during the time he failed to deliver the promises he made for Freelancer). We all know the reality is quite a different one and SC is limping along, repeatedly missing deadlines every year with no BDSSE in sight in the near future, if ever.

We have all seen similar things happen with "The Repopulation", "Greedmonger", "Divergence Online", "Pathfinder Online" and many more.

All these projects have on huge problem in common: Networking.

The main core of a MMORPG is developing a server infrastructure. Something that is highly technical and needs very good developers to pull off. You simply can't write a distributed server system with lag compensation and motion prediction without having years of experience in C++, Assembler and Network Infrastructure. Talent like that is very rare and very expensive. You can't just buy an out of the box solution because persistence (what players perceive as progression and influencing the game world) is different for every game.

What are your thoughts?

PS: There was this other Project that i can't remember the name of. It promised Dungeons that would take days to complete. They were based in LA i think. Someone remember that one?

Kyleran · May 2017

While both Chris and Steve are proving to be great salesmen I don't think its fair to associate either of them with Greedmonger/ Jason just yet.

At the moment I can see Ashes going more along the route of Life is Feudal than some of the others mentioned.

Steve did confirm the "core game" (whatever that is) would take around $30M to complete which is one of the more realistic estimates I've heard from an indie dev. (confirmation bias on my part)

So assuming he has that sort of funding (a big if) I can see it being enough to cover proper network design and coding.

Speaking of bias, why no option for "will deliver largely as promised?"

CrazKanuk · May 2017

My thought is that you're probably blowing this out of proportion. Much of this is handled in the engine and another good portion can be purchased off the store. It's a major advantage of game development today. I think you're vastly over-stating the complexity of it. I actually deployed an MMORPG, including server, in an afternoon from a $70 Unity store asset, lol.

Risc1911 · May 2017

Kyleran said:

While both Chris and Steve are proving to be great salesmen I don't think its fair to associate either of them with Greedmonger/ Jason just yet.

At the moment I can see Ashes going more along the route of Life is Feudal than some of the others mentioned.

Steve did confirm the "core game" (whatever that is) would take around $30M to complete which is one of the more realistic estimates I've heard from an indie dev. (confirmation bias on my part)

So assuming he has that sort of funding (a big if) I can see it being enough to cover proper network design and coding.

I agree with you that the $30 million sounds more realistic but as you also mentioned we don't know if he really has $30 million so the assumption must be that all he has is the Kickstarter money.

Risc1911 · May 2017

CrazKanuk said:

My thought is that you're probably blowing this out of proportion. Much of this is handled in the engine and another good portion can be purchased off the store. It's a major advantage of game development today. I think you're vastly over-stating the complexity of it. I actually deployed an MMORPG, including server, in an afternoon from a $70 Unity store asset, lol.

No you did not. You deployed an empty engine test bed with no login servers, user account servers, instance managers, instance servers, item database server, quest database server, load balancing servers or DDOS protection server.

Please feel free to prove me wrong by posting a link to your MMORPG.

CrazKanuk · May 2017

Risc1911 said:

CrazKanuk said:

My thought is that you're probably blowing this out of proportion. Much of this is handled in the engine and another good portion can be purchased off the store. It's a major advantage of game development today. I think you're vastly over-stating the complexity of it. I actually deployed an MMORPG, including server, in an afternoon from a $70 Unity store asset, lol.

No you did not. You deployed an empty engine test bed with no login servers, user account servers, instance managers, instance servers, item database server, quest database server, load balancing servers or DDOS protection server.

Please feel free to prove me wrong by posting a link to your MMORPG.

Actually, I deployed a full MMORPG with world server, login server and all, lol. It's all there. Did you want the link? It's called Atavism. Have fun, it's pretty cool.

OH!! And for like a couple grand, I can get the source code for it all, too. I didn't need that, though, it was just a teaching tool for my kids.

MaxBacon · May 2017

If Ashes of Creation is getting a 30 Million bucks in from investment from the start, then they are on better grounds than Star Citizen, Elite Dangerous or CoE were once they pitched their games.

But they STILL have to build one development team and studio capable of handling the task of the pitched ambition for the game.

Risc1911 · May 2017

CrazKanuk said:

Risc1911 said:

CrazKanuk said:

My thought is that you're probably blowing this out of proportion. Much of this is handled in the engine and another good portion can be purchased off the store. It's a major advantage of game development today. I think you're vastly over-stating the complexity of it. I actually deployed an MMORPG, including server, in an afternoon from a $70 Unity store asset, lol.

No you did not. You deployed an empty engine test bed with no login servers, user account servers, instance managers, instance servers, item database server, quest database server, load balancing servers or DDOS protection server.

Please feel free to prove me wrong by posting a link to your MMORPG.

Actually, I deployed a full MMORPG with world server, login server and all, lol. It's all there. Did you want the link? It's called Atavism. Have fun, it's pretty cool.

OH!! And for like a couple grand, I can get the source code for it all, too. I didn't need that, though, it was just a teaching tool for my kids.

It's the link to an out of the box solution that was never used in any real world production environment. Again, you did not deploy a MMORPG in an afternoon from a $70 Unity store asset. If you don't see the difference then there is no point in continuing this discussion.

Sovrath · May 2017

Risc1911 said:

All these projects have on huge problem in common: Networking.

The main core of a MMORPG is developing a server infrastructure. Something that is highly technical and needs very good developers to pull off. You simply can't write a distributed server system with lag compensation and motion prediction without having years of experience in C++, Assembler and Network Infrastructure. Talent like that is very rare and very expensive. You can't just buy an out of the box solution because persistence (what players perceive as progression and influencing the game world) is different for every game.

What are your thoughts?

My thoughts are that some of you guys are venturing into the realm of the hysterical at this point.

Pantheon seems to be a smaller project than this yet they seem to be chugging along quite nicely. I'm going to assume they have server infrastructure of some sort.

Why can they, a smaller project with less money, make this happen but it's beyond the realm of possibility for Ashes of Creation?

Additionally, they showed wayyyyyyyy less at their kickstarter launch (it didn't even fund) and yet they have made great progress.

Camelot Unchained is in a similar place though Pantheon seems to be further ahead. Then again, the scope of both games is different.

True, we can't say if these games will launch but of the mmo's that have started off kickstarter money, only a very small few have crashed. Most seem to still be in development so a wait and see approach needs to be taken.

Slapshot1188 · May 2017

It's not Greedmonger. Neither is CoE... but they both COULD be Pathfinder Online at some point (not yet there... especially not AoC).

Galadourn · May 2017

We can't know for sure, of course, if it will launch and if it will succeed. However, the pre-alpha I've seen is better than many other pre-alphas and the team seem to know what they are doing, at least from what i see from the twitch streams.
Add to this the fact that 4-5 of their team come from SOE/EQ with many years of experience and I think that they might actually be able to pull it off.

Tiller · May 2017

My thoughts is you could hire Chinese or Indian coders who will work cheap, as long as they have A/C they will be all good.

Jacobin · May 2017

It will be Pathfinder / Life is Feudal.

Huge promise and feature lists that end up just being 'meh' games.

From a business perspective there are tons of holes and red flags (dev experience, MLM sales tactics, tenuous funding claims).

From a game perspective 'nodes' is nothing that new. Darkfall did a similar thing with its cities in 2009 and was actually more impressive since it was a complete zoneless open world.

Ponzini · May 2017

Jacobin said:

It will be Pathfinder / Life is Feudal.

Huge promise and feature lists that end up just being 'meh' games.

From a business perspective there are tons of holes and red flags (dev experience, MLM sales tactics, bogus funding claims).

From a game perspective 'nodes' is nothing that new. Darkfall in fact did a similar but even more ambitious thing with its cities in a complete open world in 2009.

Pretty sure of yourself. Didn't know we had time travelers here in the forums.

We can only wait and see. Hope you are wrong and look like an idiot in ~2-3 years.

Jacobin · May 2017

Ponzini said:

We can only wait and see. Hope you are wrong and look like an idiot in ~2-3 years.

Considering KS games with more funding and smaller scope are still barely in alpha after 4 years I am not worried.

The fact that you even think 2-3 is remotely possible just shows the delusions people are willing to accept due to a nifty sales pitch.

Phaserlight · May 2017

Risc1911 said:

Another Kickstarters with grand ideas and dreams. The guy behind the Project, Steven Shariff, is about as shady as Jason Appleton from Greedmonger and as good a salesman as Chris Roberts. Shariff knows how to market a product and make great looking presentations from his MLM experience.

He is essentially doing what Chris Roberts did when he said Star Citizen will revolutionize PC gaming and is going to be the BDSSE (Best Damn Space Sim Ever, a phrase Chris coined during the time he failed to deliver the promises he made for Freelancer). We all know the reality is quite a different one and SC is limping along, repeatedly missing deadlines every year with no BDSSE in sight in the near future, if ever.

We have all seen similar things happen with "The Repopulation", "Greedmonger", "Divergence Online", "Pathfinder Online" and many more.

All these projects have on huge problem in common: Networking.

The main core of a MMORPG is developing a server infrastructure. Something that is highly technical and needs very good developers to pull off. You simply can't write a distributed server system with lag compensation and motion prediction without having years of experience in C++, Assembler and Network Infrastructure. Talent like that is very rare and very expensive. You can't just buy an out of the box solution because persistence (what players perceive as progression and influencing the game world) is different for every game.

What are your thoughts?

PS: There was this other Project that i can't remember the name of. It promised Dungeons that would take days to complete. They were based in LA i think. Someone remember that one?

Jason Appleton's background was MMA. Coming from someone who watched the whole thing unfold, right here on the forums, including Appleton threatening to sue everyone and the kitchen sink, I don't think it's a fair comparison.

That Shariff has run profitable businesses in the past is a measure of confidence for this project. His presentation, affect, are 180 degrees from Appleton.

I think it's embarrasing how far some people are reaching to try and assassinate this project. Everything he has presented so far give absolutely no clue that anything is wrong. I think @Slapshot1188 is closest in his analogy. Greedmonger, Star Citizen, both had some eyebrow raising things in the way they were set up. If anything, it would be a complete surprise to me if this project imploded.

Iselin · May 2017

Sounds like someone knows fuck all about Greedmonger and is just throwing the name around for shock value.

Risc1911 · May 2017

Sovrath said:

Risc1911 said:

All these projects have on huge problem in common: Networking.

The main core of a MMORPG is developing a server infrastructure. Something that is highly technical and needs very good developers to pull off. You simply can't write a distributed server system with lag compensation and motion prediction without having years of experience in C++, Assembler and Network Infrastructure. Talent like that is very rare and very expensive. You can't just buy an out of the box solution because persistence (what players perceive as progression and influencing the game world) is different for every game.

What are your thoughts?

Why can they [Pantheon], a smaller project with less money, make this happen but it's beyond the realm of possibility for Ashes of Creation?

All of these projects work in a development environment with ~16-24 players. They are not in an MMO environment at all. Once 10,000 users hit your servers at the same time 24/7 you realize that your out of the box networking solution login server is completely useless. Once mission hubs and grind areas are flooded with 5000 players you realize that taking an out of the box solution was a big mistake.

I have not seen a convincing demonstration from any of the Kickstarters that would show their network capabilities. It's all about features and graphics.

I'd really like to know if there is even one Kickstarter MMORPG that has made it to a polished production status. I am not following all of them, maybe you can tell me if there is one i missed.

Risc1911 · May 2017

Kyleran said:

Speaking of bias, why no option for "will deliver largely as promised?"

Oh darn i did the whole thing wrong. I fixed it. Sorry new to the forum.

Kyleran · May 2017

Risc1911 said:

Kyleran said:

Speaking of bias, why no option for "will deliver largely as promised?"

There is an option for that:

Ashes of Creation will deliver on it's promises and truly revolutionize the genre.

Must be a new forum issue, while my phone displays the text for the first option, it does not have a radio button in front of it like the other two choices do.

Risc1911 · May 2017

Kyleran said:
Must be a new forum issue, while my phone displays the text for the first option, it does not have a radio button in front of it like the other two choices do.

I fixed it. It's just a weird setup for a poll.

SomethingUnusual · May 2017

I can't speak for, against, or about Ashes of Creation -- I know absolutely nothing about it.

But I do have to ask. Why they hell is there so much hatred towards independent fundraising? It's been proven effective and you don't have to stand in line to prove to an investor anything that is going to be skeptical and likely not interested in even the subject matter.

This couldn't be proven true or false, but mega corporation develops game that sucks but got these investors and no one complains and that company still makes millions/billions. And independent company/team raises a mil just to develop something and everyone freaks out. The difference still is that the fund raised can turn out to be a better game and the artists can get their message across, unlike the bureaucracy game company that is literally only after your money. Sure, it may end up just as bad as the mega corp games, but there isn't some jackass breathing down their neck.

MightyUnclean · May 2017

Risc1911 said:

Sovrath said:

Risc1911 said:

All these projects have on huge problem in common: Networking.

The main core of a MMORPG is developing a server infrastructure. Something that is highly technical and needs very good developers to pull off. You simply can't write a distributed server system with lag compensation and motion prediction without having years of experience in C++, Assembler and Network Infrastructure. Talent like that is very rare and very expensive. You can't just buy an out of the box solution because persistence (what players perceive as progression and influencing the game world) is different for every game.

What are your thoughts?

Why can they [Pantheon], a smaller project with less money, make this happen but it's beyond the realm of possibility for Ashes of Creation?

All of these projects work in a development environment with ~16-24 players. They are not in an MMO environment at all. Once 10,000 users hit your servers at the same time 24/7 you realize that your out of the box networking solution login server is completely useless. Once mission hubs and grind areas are flooded with 5000 players you realize that taking an out of the box solution was a big mistake.

I have not seen a convincing demonstration from any of the Kickstarters that would show their network capabilities. It's all about features and graphics.

I'd really like to know if there is even one Kickstarter MMORPG that has made it to a polished production status. I am not following all of them, maybe you can tell me if there is one i missed.

The closest one I can think of is Albion Online, which is in beta and is relatively polished. However, it's a very simple, uninspired game that is in no way revolutionary. All of the other KS MMO's I have followed are in alpha at best. I do believe most of these indie developers had good intentions, but just had no idea the complexity of what they were taking on.

Risc1911 · May 2017

SomethingUnusual said:

I can't speak for, against, or about Ashes of Creation -- I know absolutely nothing about it.

But I do have to ask. Why they hell is there so much hatred towards independent fundraising? It's been proven effective and you don't have to stand in line to prove to an investor anything that is going to be skeptical and likely not interested in even the subject matter.

This couldn't be proven true or false, but mega corporation develops game that sucks but got these investors and no one complains and that company still makes millions/billions. And independent company/team raises a mil just to develop something and everyone freaks out. The difference still is that the fund raised can turn out to be a better game and the artists can get their message across, unlike the bureaucracy game company that is literally only after your money. Sure, it may end up just as bad as the mega corp games, but there isn't some jackass breathing down their neck.

First of all, Kickstarter is not a fundraiser for venture capital. It's a no strings attached funding scheme were all the liability rests with the people giving money to projects.

If they are not after our money then why make a Kickstarter? They want to get paid before they deliver a Product. They will pay themselves if the game releases or not and there is no financial oversight. In a corporate environment the risk is on the corporation and not the customers.

If every Kickstarter had to open their books to their backers with quarterly reports on finances then i would agree with you. Since this is not the case, it is a breeding ground for amateur businessmen that could not write a business plan if their life depended on it.

I am sure that very few of the failed Kickstarters did go in with the intention to scam people, most failed because of incompetence and the inability to manage the project.

Constructive criticism requires that i at least propose some solution.

As said before, one solution would be financial accountability towards the backers.
Stricter Requirements: Like a full Business Plan as part of a project pitch.
Only 50% of the funds are released immediately and the rest is released when the Product is delivered.

Just my opinion. No Hatred at all.

acidblood · May 2017

Unlike SC, and especially GM, I do think Ashes of Creation will actually 'launch' sometime in the next 2-3 years... I would not, however, be at all surprised if that 'launch' was an indefinite early access that is light on content and with a number of listed features missing / buggy.

CrazKanuk · May 2017

Risc1911 said:

CrazKanuk said:

Risc1911 said:

CrazKanuk said:

My thought is that you're probably blowing this out of proportion. Much of this is handled in the engine and another good portion can be purchased off the store. It's a major advantage of game development today. I think you're vastly over-stating the complexity of it. I actually deployed an MMORPG, including server, in an afternoon from a $70 Unity store asset, lol.

No you did not. You deployed an empty engine test bed with no login servers, user account servers, instance managers, instance servers, item database server, quest database server, load balancing servers or DDOS protection server.

Please feel free to prove me wrong by posting a link to your MMORPG.

Actually, I deployed a full MMORPG with world server, login server and all, lol. It's all there. Did you want the link? It's called Atavism. Have fun, it's pretty cool.

OH!! And for like a couple grand, I can get the source code for it all, too. I didn't need that, though, it was just a teaching tool for my kids.

It's the link to an out of the box solution that was never used in any real world production environment. Again, you did not deploy a MMORPG in an afternoon from a $70 Unity store asset. If you don't see the difference then there is no point in continuing this discussion.

Soooooo you're telling me that you can't see the difference between access to assets today and 10 years ago? That's my illustration. There are plenty of tools available which mitigate the risk and cost significantly. It's like trying to say that COBOL is still the best solution today, and that's why it still lives on. No! It's because that's how people have always done it, so the innovation in server tech is stagnant, and it's because of you, telling people that they need expensive contractors who will implement tried, tested solutions using tired and broken tech.

Howdy, Stranger!

This looks like a repeat of Greedmonger sprinkled with StarCitizen.

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

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This looks like a repeat of Greedmonger sprinkled with StarCitizen.

Comments

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV