Bigger than beta for me would be a graphical overhaul, or at least partnerships with some studio or so focused on such task, the game seriously needs it.
Bigger than beta for me would be a graphical overhaul, or at least partnerships with some studio or so focused on such task, the game seriously needs it.
I actually have no issues with the graphics even in the state presented in the linked video.
Im far more concerned they deliver on the massive battles they've promised, and they should only make graphics improvements that do not slow things down.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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I actually have no issues with the graphics even in the state presented in the linked video.
Im far more concerned they deliver on the massive battles they've promised, and they should only make graphics improvements that do not slow things down.
I don't think the battle scale is a problem being such a focus for years and the tests they've made shown it working.
The thing is, the cost of having large-scale battles will have on the game-world, how much cuts will be made visually and on the PvE itself, that's why I thought if they do get some decent studio involved to help them with one polished up graphical side to bring stuff to a decent quality tier, then it's of great benefit.
This because this visuals knowing gamers, it will go pretty unforgiving, especially now as we live on the times of "alphas are excuses for devs to sell unfinished games".
OK, so they posted a link to the "announcement of the announcement" newsletter on MOP. The newsletter says nothing about this announcement being bigger than beta 1, so I'm now back to being convinced that this will just be the beta 1 announcement that was promised last month.
No MJ has clearly said it’s not Beta 1 but bigger than that. Beta 1 announcement will come soon though.
Ok, so if it's not a Beta 1 announcement, then I'm assuming that a release date announcement is out of the question, so @cameltosis can probably scratch his #1. I'll write a new #1 for you....
1) That stuff that had us fucked has now been unfucked.
I feel like that would be pretty big.
Na, if this announcement is bigger than Beta 1, I still think an actual release date is possible.
Stuff that fucked them up has already been unfucked. I guess new staff could be a big announcement from CSE's point of view, but from our point of view I can't see it being big news unless they announce new features (which I can't see happening) or confirm a release schedule as a result of the new hires.
Cool! I was unaware of that. I haven't actually checked on this in a couple months, so I'm out of the loop. Good to hear it's on some sort of track?
So, as far as I'm aware there were two major setbacks on the project.
1) Staff - they really struggled to hire staff for their Fairfax, Virginia office. Its not a place known for game development so there was no natural pool of talent to draw from locally, they had to try and entice people to move. Apparently Fairfax isn't particularly attractive so developers were unwilling to relocate!
This was solved quite a while ago now. They opened up a new studio in Seattle and managed to hire the appropriate talent there. This obviously took time to do and was funded by Mark's own money, along with additional money from their primary investor. I have a vague recollection that the additional investment totalled $6m, but I can't find anything about it so I'm probably remembering incorrectly!
2) Re-abilitation - CU doesn't have "skills" like most MMOs. It has components that we then combine to create our own skills. This is absolutely core to the gameplay and took a hell of a lot of work to complete.....but it didn't work quite right. My memory is failing me again, I have a feeling the issue was that the ability system didn't scale properly or didn't interact with other components of the engine properly, so whilst early testing of the ability system was successful, later tests highlighted issues.
When they delved into the root cause of the problems, they realised that it was unfixable. They could have gotten away with what they already had as it did work, just not as well as they wanted. So, they decided to re-do the system completely, fixing the issues that had been highlighted during testing but also making some minor improvements in other areas too. They called this work "re-abilitation" and it took them nearly a year to complete, but it is now complete.
As with any large software project, you expect delays along the way, but I think these were the two big ones and both set CSE back by about a year each. The re-abilitation project was a pretty fundamental one as it meant they couldn't really work on other stuff while the dev doing the engine worked on this. Can't really start testing combat or classes if no-one can use abilities!
Anyway, my hope remains high for this project. I'm a software developer myself so I really appreciate the effort that CSE have spent on the underlying tech. They've been doing all the hard stuff first, ensuring a solid technical foundation before adding the game stuff on top of it. It's what makes me confident that it'll be a solid platform when it launches. Now that they've completed the underlying tech, it also makes me hopeful that the remaining stuff (the bits we actually find interesting) will be developed at a very rapid rate - because it's easier than the underlying tech.
I've been checking in on the CU site every hour today.....well, since 9am US anyway. Nothing yet, but I remain excited!
Look elsewhere on this site.
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“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
What I worry with CU is that when the beta opens people will be exposed to something similar to this:
It already got quite the backlash when posted, been from mid-2017, so what to expect from CU's beta is something I wonder.
That steak needs a lot more sizzle.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I've been checking in on the CU site every hour today.....well, since 9am US anyway. Nothing yet, but I remain excited!
Look elsewhere on this site.
Thanks.
I'm a bit annoyed. I can't actually find an announcement anywhere. I mean, if you are announcing something....announce it! All I can see is the interview on this site, and a separate interview on MOP, and neither link to an announcement. It's not on the official site either. Am I missing something?
So, this announcement seems to be $7.5m in additional investment. That's obviously great news! Even better is confirmation that the design of the game isn't changing one bit, nor is the business model (though I noticed they now refer to it as the "launch" business model).
But, in this interview, Mark says this is the second of 4 big announcements. The final one he said will be the timeline (beta + release dates) which we'll get within 30 days. Anyone know what the first big announcement was?
17 million total since start of project according to GamesBeat. Starting to sound like a decent indie project.
Now for the beta announcement over the next 2 weeks and these new hires to throw out visuals that finally convince those who need purdy pictures to understand the game better.
I've been checking in on the CU site every hour today.....well, since 9am US anyway. Nothing yet, but I remain excited!
Look elsewhere on this site.
Thanks.
I'm a bit annoyed. I can't actually find an announcement anywhere. I mean, if you are announcing something....announce it! All I can see is the interview on this site, and a separate interview on MOP, and neither link to an announcement. It's not on the official site either. Am I missing something?
So, this announcement seems to be $7.5m in additional investment. That's obviously great news! Even better is confirmation that the design of the game isn't changing one bit, nor is the business model (though I noticed they now refer to it as the "launch" business model).
But, in this interview, Mark says this is the second of 4 big announcements. The final one he said will be the timeline (beta + release dates) which we'll get within 30 days. Anyone know what the first big announcement was?
The first announcement (not considered big by CSE) was the hiring of a new lead animator, a new community manager, and a new producer. See the January 5 item here http://camelotunchained.com/v3/category/news/
Is it just me or anyone else thinks the new lead animator is the best news?
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"One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others may despise it, is the invention of good games and it cannot be done by men out of touch with their instinctive selves." - Carl Jung
I've been checking in on the CU site every hour today.....well, since 9am US anyway. Nothing yet, but I remain excited!
Look elsewhere on this site.
Thanks.
I'm a bit annoyed. I can't actually find an announcement anywhere. I mean, if you are announcing something....announce it! All I can see is the interview on this site, and a separate interview on MOP, and neither link to an announcement. It's not on the official site either. Am I missing something?
So, this announcement seems to be $7.5m in additional investment. That's obviously great news! Even better is confirmation that the design of the game isn't changing one bit, nor is the business model (though I noticed they now refer to it as the "launch" business model).
But, in this interview, Mark says this is the second of 4 big announcements. The final one he said will be the timeline (beta + release dates) which we'll get within 30 days. Anyone know what the first big announcement was?
The first announcement (not considered big by CSE) was the hiring of a new lead animator, a new community manager, and a new producer. See the January 5 item here http://camelotunchained.com/v3/category/news/
Cool, thanks for the confirmation. So:
Announcement 1: New staff Announcement 2: How we paid for the new staff Announcement 3: ??? Announcement 4: Beta and Release Dates
When spelled out like that, it doesn't seem like 4 big announcements, more like 1 big announcement (beta and release) plus 3 notifications explaining how they were able to reach those dates (I'm guessing announcement 3 will also be a new staff one - they just need to hire the new staff, then use those resources to plan out final year of dev). Still all good news of course, I'm probably coming off as a grumpy old man at the moment but this remains the only MMO I'm excited about and today's news is good news for the game.
Perhaps this is them switching their hype machine back on?!
What's cool is that these investors are old friends of Mark Jacobs, Mythic, etc.. some of the old investors that also invested in DAOC before. This isn't a takeover investor like Columbus Nova who bought SOE, renamed to Dayberak, fired a bunch of people, and axed EQNext project.
So for CU this just means earlier launch, earlier beta, more hired hands to finish the game. While they retain full creative control of the game, no loot boxes will be added, no changes to the game's vision or design. All in all, I see zero downside from this news, and that's pretty big.
Played: EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-LOTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO-BDO Waiting For: CU & Vanilla WoW
Maybe MJ got his head out of where the sun never shines and announces a more reasonable game style
The game is being made for a specific audience. The KS was proof of interest and not ever meant as primary funding (although a nice chunk of cash indeed).
It is perfectly ok for people to not be interested in it at all. This is a niche product tailored to a specific audience without worry of compromise. It more games did this we'd have diversity of choice and of small developers once again instead of massive game factory farms that only exist to pay CEO's millions each month.
News like this is the best thing we can hope for for the health of the gaming industry. It inspires other small businesses to attempt to make niche market products too, tailored to fill gaps of interests.
Last I heard from MJ is they are self publishing. Investors was all that was needed. At least NA and Europe is being targeted. I have no idea is Asia would be interested in this game. Maybe Korea as they like siege games if they can accept the western lore.
You know how i see CU,exactly another Warhammer ,a game that failed badly and imo Warhammer likely had more systems in place to make RvR work.
This is actually why Warhammer failed, this I hope will be a lesson learned for Camelot Unchained and other games that attempt this. One of Warhammers greatest failures was all the 'systems' that they put in place to 'enhance' RvR. They didn't need to do 90% of that. The greatest failure was having a map that showed where the fights were, the people were. This still is the greatest failure of these systems.. the problem is if you show people where the fight is you effectively negate 90% of your game design because people just flock to where the action was. In DAOC, before they put this mechanism in the game RvR was fantastic. You could find it anywhere at any time in any part of the zones. That sense of discovery and excitement is what kept people playing. Players don't need a lot of mechanics in place, just give us the playground and let us play.
PVP is lol,,there is just no way you are ever designing a good pvp game in a rpg and it wil NEVER coincide inside of a PVE environment so you are NEVER going to have a complete game.
You obviously never played DAOC, it was and still is the best RvR/PvP game ever created. For anybody wanting to do an RvR they should do a serious case study on DAOC to see what they did right and what they did wrong. This is also why Warhammer failed, it's like they forgot all the knowledge gained from DAOC or threw it out the window... very bizarre.
When i say "never" that is because i know how cheap and lazy devs are,they will not spend the kind of effort it takes to make a pve/pvp world work,it would take way too much work.Then if it is not catered to PVE, i don't want to play it because catering to pvp ruins the full potential a grouping game would have.
Let me fix this for you... "When I say never that is because I know how cheap and lazy MILLENNIALS are."
I've said it in other threads, I don't think we will see another great MMORPG released until a few more years once the Millennials get out of those positions and the next generation starts taking over.
I also thought a big problem in DAOC and Other pvp games was the glowing name over your head. Made it impossible to use terrain creatively to hide. Hope there are no floating name tags. Make players target and con to identify
Comments
Im far more concerned they deliver on the massive battles they've promised, and they should only make graphics improvements that do not slow things down.
"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 thing is, the cost of having large-scale battles will have on the game-world, how much cuts will be made visually and on the PvE itself, that's why I thought if they do get some decent studio involved to help them with one polished up graphical side to bring stuff to a decent quality tier, then it's of great benefit.
This because this visuals knowing gamers, it will go pretty unforgiving, especially now as we live on the times of "alphas are excuses for devs to sell unfinished games".
1) Staff - they really struggled to hire staff for their Fairfax, Virginia office. Its not a place known for game development so there was no natural pool of talent to draw from locally, they had to try and entice people to move. Apparently Fairfax isn't particularly attractive so developers were unwilling to relocate!
This was solved quite a while ago now. They opened up a new studio in Seattle and managed to hire the appropriate talent there. This obviously took time to do and was funded by Mark's own money, along with additional money from their primary investor. I have a vague recollection that the additional investment totalled $6m, but I can't find anything about it so I'm probably remembering incorrectly!
2) Re-abilitation - CU doesn't have "skills" like most MMOs. It has components that we then combine to create our own skills. This is absolutely core to the gameplay and took a hell of a lot of work to complete.....but it didn't work quite right. My memory is failing me again, I have a feeling the issue was that the ability system didn't scale properly or didn't interact with other components of the engine properly, so whilst early testing of the ability system was successful, later tests highlighted issues.
When they delved into the root cause of the problems, they realised that it was unfixable. They could have gotten away with what they already had as it did work, just not as well as they wanted. So, they decided to re-do the system completely, fixing the issues that had been highlighted during testing but also making some minor improvements in other areas too. They called this work "re-abilitation" and it took them nearly a year to complete, but it is now complete.
As with any large software project, you expect delays along the way, but I think these were the two big ones and both set CSE back by about a year each. The re-abilitation project was a pretty fundamental one as it meant they couldn't really work on other stuff while the dev doing the engine worked on this. Can't really start testing combat or classes if no-one can use abilities!
Anyway, my hope remains high for this project. I'm a software developer myself so I really appreciate the effort that CSE have spent on the underlying tech. They've been doing all the hard stuff first, ensuring a solid technical foundation before adding the game stuff on top of it. It's what makes me confident that it'll be a solid platform when it launches. Now that they've completed the underlying tech, it also makes me hopeful that the remaining stuff (the bits we actually find interesting) will be developed at a very rapid rate - because it's easier than the underlying tech.
My body is ready.
..Cake..
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
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
Beta 1 announce within 30 days
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
I'm a bit annoyed. I can't actually find an announcement anywhere. I mean, if you are announcing something....announce it! All I can see is the interview on this site, and a separate interview on MOP, and neither link to an announcement. It's not on the official site either. Am I missing something?
So, this announcement seems to be $7.5m in additional investment. That's obviously great news! Even better is confirmation that the design of the game isn't changing one bit, nor is the business model (though I noticed they now refer to it as the "launch" business model).
But, in this interview, Mark says this is the second of 4 big announcements. The final one he said will be the timeline (beta + release dates) which we'll get within 30 days. Anyone know what the first big announcement was?
Now for the beta announcement over the next 2 weeks and these new hires to throw out visuals that finally convince those who need purdy pictures to understand the game better.
You stay sassy!
DAOC Live (inactive): R11 Cleric R11 Druid R11 Minstrel R9 Eldritch R6 Sorc R6 Scout R6 Healer
Announcement 1: New staff
Announcement 2: How we paid for the new staff
Announcement 3: ???
Announcement 4: Beta and Release Dates
When spelled out like that, it doesn't seem like 4 big announcements, more like 1 big announcement (beta and release) plus 3 notifications explaining how they were able to reach those dates (I'm guessing announcement 3 will also be a new staff one - they just need to hire the new staff, then use those resources to plan out final year of dev). Still all good news of course, I'm probably coming off as a grumpy old man at the moment but this remains the only MMO I'm excited about and today's news is good news for the game.
Perhaps this is them switching their hype machine back on?!
So for CU this just means earlier launch, earlier beta, more hired hands to finish the game. While they retain full creative control of the game, no loot boxes will be added, no changes to the game's vision or design. All in all, I see zero downside from this news, and that's pretty big.
Played: EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-LOTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO-BDO
Waiting For: CU & Vanilla WoW
It is perfectly ok for people to not be interested in it at all. This is a niche product tailored to a specific audience without worry of compromise. It more games did this we'd have diversity of choice and of small developers once again instead of massive game factory farms that only exist to pay CEO's millions each month.
News like this is the best thing we can hope for for the health of the gaming industry. It inspires other small businesses to attempt to make niche market products too, tailored to fill gaps of interests.
You stay sassy!
You stay sassy!