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Saga of Lucimia, The hiden gem ?
delete5230
Member EpicPosts: 5,338
I'm getting excited,
On a "very passive" scale I've been following development of this mmorpg. I'll have to admit nothing more than what's been discussed here on our forums and lightly thread their web site.
Saga of Lucimia is a crowd funded game that seems to follow a more true Everquest 1 feel, infact more so than Pantheon. What I like about this game is the no frills development. It doesn't seem to have many features other than classless character builds.... In an odd way I LOVE THAT.
I'm ok with a simple feature game where you make a name for your self with a community, or go about the world and find stuff. After all take an offline mainstream game such as The Witcher 3 and remove the story, theirs still lots to do. Think about that !... Now add a community to that idea and you have a fun game that could last for years. I'll take a community over developer commentary any day
Saga of Lucimia is still in pre-alpha stage this is true. However their offering a lot of community testing and it seems to be ramping up. Infact the next one is December 8th – 14th and all it takes is The Adventurer pack for $40. I'm not trying to promote anything here but simply saying this game is truly MOVING ALONG.
Just thinking out loud, here are my thoughts:
I'm not a first generation EQ1 player but I want to be. I'll not play a 1999 bug filled, badly coded game where the AI and UI is a mess, I'll leave that to the nostalgia fans..... But I want that experience !... To get this I have two choices, Pantheon or Saga of Lucimia. Unfortunately my Prize game (Pantheon) is light years away and I have a "deep gut feeling" it will be a nightmare release years down the road.... I have faith but a mess none the less. This leaves me with Saga of Lucimia, but I can't rule nothing out.
Saga of Lucimia,
After the Holidays as we go into deep Winter and a few more builds I may jump on the band wagon, take on a new hobby. I'll take advantage of the many weekend testing's ignore/report bugs and have fun with a hobby along with embracing the community.
I'll finally find a home
On a "very passive" scale I've been following development of this mmorpg. I'll have to admit nothing more than what's been discussed here on our forums and lightly thread their web site.
Saga of Lucimia is a crowd funded game that seems to follow a more true Everquest 1 feel, infact more so than Pantheon. What I like about this game is the no frills development. It doesn't seem to have many features other than classless character builds.... In an odd way I LOVE THAT.
I'm ok with a simple feature game where you make a name for your self with a community, or go about the world and find stuff. After all take an offline mainstream game such as The Witcher 3 and remove the story, theirs still lots to do. Think about that !... Now add a community to that idea and you have a fun game that could last for years. I'll take a community over developer commentary any day
Saga of Lucimia is still in pre-alpha stage this is true. However their offering a lot of community testing and it seems to be ramping up. Infact the next one is December 8th – 14th and all it takes is The Adventurer pack for $40. I'm not trying to promote anything here but simply saying this game is truly MOVING ALONG.
Just thinking out loud, here are my thoughts:
I'm not a first generation EQ1 player but I want to be. I'll not play a 1999 bug filled, badly coded game where the AI and UI is a mess, I'll leave that to the nostalgia fans..... But I want that experience !... To get this I have two choices, Pantheon or Saga of Lucimia. Unfortunately my Prize game (Pantheon) is light years away and I have a "deep gut feeling" it will be a nightmare release years down the road.... I have faith but a mess none the less. This leaves me with Saga of Lucimia, but I can't rule nothing out.
Saga of Lucimia,
After the Holidays as we go into deep Winter and a few more builds I may jump on the band wagon, take on a new hobby. I'll take advantage of the many weekend testing's ignore/report bugs and have fun with a hobby along with embracing the community.
I'll finally find a home
Comments
We're self-funded (everyone on the team has a day job and works on this project at nights/on weekend), with our nine LLC members receiving zero money for their time on this project: we get paid when the product launches.
We operated out of our own pockets for a year and a half in the beginning, but since September of 2015 our pre-order store has paid for legal fees and the cost of doing business (servers/licensing/etc.) and is a means for fans to support what we're building and get involved in early access (we've had players logging into the game since September 2015).
After we did the Intel Top 10 Indie Game Dev Showcase at the Austin Game Conference in late 2017, we received seed funding that has paid for our five contractors throughout 2018. We had six, but Liz got an amazing job offer with Naughty Dog working on Last of Us 2, so we pushed her out the door with high-fives.
As some folks like to point out, we *did* have an Indiegogo in... late 2014? This was prior to our LLC formation and we had friends and some fans wanting to give us money, but we had no legal way to accept funding for tax purposes, so we spun up a little campaign to allow folks to pitch in. I think it did a whopping 3k or 4k or something. It was like 30-40 people.
Our team is looking forward to Pantheon like everyone else, but in the meantime we're plugging along building our own little project. There are some similarities (we're both PvE), but I think we're far more tabletop-inspired than anything else (our game was built around the tabletop campaign I DMed in the late 90s and then refined over the years, and has a series of novels behind it; Book One is called Echoes of the Past and launches December 1st), though our go-to MMORPG is typically EverQuest when we look at how we want "the experience" to feel.
From our FAQ page: "Think early EverQuest. You can head out, harvest a few things, craft a bit, kill a few mobs close to town within the safety of the guards if you need to run, but if you want to hit up Orc Hill you’ll need 3-4 other players, and if you want to head into Crushbone and handle the Throne Room, you’ll need a full group. You need a well-balanced team of adventurers to handle whatever you might come across in the wild. You need gear. You need supplies. Bandages. Potions. Scrolls. A pack mule. Rope. Never leave home without a good length of rope."
I always hesitate when people get hyped about us, though; it's best not to get your hopes up about us being the "savior" of anything. We're just doing our own little thing in our own little corner of the MMORPG space, and we're very much "figuring it out" as we go, since none of us had any previous development experience.
And remember; MMORPGs take an average of 6 - 8 years of development. Some, like ESO, can take 8 - 10. We're 3.5 years into the programming side of things. I wouldn't ballpark us anywhere sooner than 2021, and more than likely somewhere between there and 2023.
We're currently in talks with investors for another round of funding to expand our team with 7 - 10 full-time employees on top of the 14 folks we have currently working on the project. Should have some exciting news for folks in early/mid 2019 on that front.
We've also been approached by a few publishers, but unfortunately everyone has wanted us to go free-to-play with a cash shop, and we're staunch supporters of the pay-to-play (monthly sub) option.
Our social media has all the latest news. We've got Release #11 coming up December 8th - 14th, so if anyone wants to check things out they can follow along at YouTube/Facebook/Twitch/Twitter where we'll be publishing photos and videos.
We just did a video on our first balance pass the other day, and once we get past the holiday weekend here, I'll have a slew of new videos coming out next week covering all of the changes coming up in this build (the wound system, campfires and regen, the new UI, new vegetation system and light-culling optimization; we've seen 20+ FPS increases across the board), so stay tuned
In the meantime, thanks for the plug @delete5230 and hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving.
*edited for a typo*
We'll actually be closing down our pre-order store in early/mid 2019. Probably after Release 12, which is scheduled for March and when we bring questing into the game.
Once that happens, we'll be transitioning to alpha, and everyone will be under NDA for the duration. The pre-order tiers will be wiped, and we won't open the store back up until we hit beta, at which point it will be a traditional "base edition, deluxe edition, collector's edition" series of packages, probably three months prior to launch.
Still a long way to go
"Our social media has all the latest news. YouTube/Facebook/Twitch/Twitter where we'll be publishing photos and videos."
I'm too old to follow games on social media. YouTube is for watching music and funny cat videos, Facebook to connect with a select few family and old friends.
Twitter is for idiots to share their opinions which I care nothing for and Twitch is for ....watching people play games, why the f=@k would I ever do that, so I don't have accounts for either of the latter.
It's like SOLs entire team is made up of milineals with no clue on how to communicate with anyone older. They won't stay off my damn lawn either.
Fortunately Renfail keeps us up to date here and on MassivelyOP so it doesn't totally fall of my radar. Oh yeah, they have a website with some good Monday morning posts.
Now, if only I live long enough to see it launch, my odds in the dead pool get worse every year.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
"I should run a marathon backwards. So I could see what second place look like" Royce da 5'9"
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing FO76 ATM.
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
@Renfail I don't know why you guys bother with posting anything on Massively, that site is run by a bunch of idiots with most of their readers being one of a hive mind. I haven't see you guys get a lot of love over there over the years. Most of the posters there just like low effort, boring themepark MMOs where socializing and depth on not a priority.
Plus, that site has a horrible reputation for censorship and is losing a lot of their readership.
PS. Love MMORPG. at least real MMO gamers are part of this community.
All I can do is answer comments and reply to folks who have questions, much like here.
I feel like the only acceptable MMO is just another WoW clone over there.
Like that entire LFG tool fiasco. I think I remember correctly, you guys were merely throwing around ideas about not having an automated grouping tool for your game and it was like you committed some kind of sin. I liked the idea of having inns as a place to form groups, I thought it was a neat idea. Again, I'm not sure this was your game lol.
Anyway, keep up the good work! The genre needs some new blood in the market. I think people have really under estimated MMOs too, I don't think it is the zombie wasteland that everyone portrays.
le
The vast majority of their staff + audience prefer free-to-play, solo MMOs.
Even despite that, we've earned a slew of followers who can see past that, so it's still a valid community, even though the majority (I'd say 80% lol) of their community aren't really on board with what we are building.
Indeed, the LFG thread was one that was fairly heated because we will not have a matchmaking system in the game. Instead, we will have a LFG/LFM panel, similar to EQ2, where you can post your build (tank/dps/healer/utility/cc) and then other players can look to see who is available, or you can see what groups are looking for more, and then reach out, communicate, and negotiate the terms of your group.
From there we have limited fast travel means to get you to your group; one-way summon portals (similar to WoW summoning portals; multiple people have to be at the portal to summon you, and you must first have already visited the location to receive a summons).
Another controversial thread was our decision not to have minimaps; we aren't a sci-fi game. We are a fantasy world. You don't have GPS in a low-tech fantasy environment. It would totally make sense if we had technology to show us our location and the like, but we aren't in a sci-fi world. As such, we have sense heading as a skill, and players will need to rely on learning the zones/landmarks/etc.
Will folks still make maps? Sure. They did for EQ1 also (EQAtlas back in the day). Some people will use them. Others won't.
In any case, we get it; a lot of our design decisions are old school and won't be popular with the modern audience. We're fine with that. We aren't trying to build the next WoW.
For me a real mmorpg is something else. It's as different as watching TV, watching Youtubes or listening to a good CD.
Understand a REAL mmoprg is to be played for years, it's not exciting all the time, you may not have that well put together group every time and fail terribly. They'll be times where your mindlessly chopping at trees because you plan on being the best crafter in the game. Payoffs could take months....The good news ?... You have plenty of time.
I can't remember a single time I had a memorable experience from a video game. Fun yes, memorable no. I could write a book of good times I had with a true mmorpg.
You can win a video game, most don't know how to win an mmorpg.
I do.... a large friends list
Come January I'll be digging deep into Saga of Lucimia.
We're still playing EQ1 to this day. Still playing LOTRO. Still playing WoW. Not full-time, but we typically will jump in for 3 - 6 months every year into one of those (also FFXIV, ESO).
For example, we are headed into LOTRO Legendary on the Anor server next Tuesday, and will be playing there until WoW Classic launches. Last year we did EQ2 and ESO. Year before that FFXIV and EQ1 progression servers. Year before that, Project 1999. Somewhere in there I know I've personally dabbled in SW:TOR for 4-6 months, just don't remember when or where lol. And I typically circle back around to SWTOR every couple of years when they've got enough expansion content out to keep me occupied for at least 4-6 months.
It's hard to get that in single player games. That goes back to the "a single player will only log around 40 hours per game on average, while a player with friends will log upwards of 2000 hours into the same game".
If it's group-based, it's got longevity.
See you in the new year =P
On multiple grounds, actually: it's not hidden, and it's not a gem. Maybe the game will be good someday or maybe not, but I'm generally against offering excessively effusive praise for pre-alpha games based mostly on what you hope that the game will someday be.
But it would be nice to give options too?
I'm unsure about percentage done but I don't care it will be my new hobby... It's better than sitting here doin nothing... Time to take some action instead of talking about it
I'm sick of talking.
Community-based gaming is the best type of gaming
That's another one of the reasons we have been so firm on our PvE-ONLY stance.
That's awesome you guys had regular jobs and pitched in to make a nice dream game. Kudos to you. i'll definitely try it out when it is available for early access or something. Keep up the good work.
@Kyleran
Stop being a pussy. Live forever.
My wife and I shut down our travel brand after our contract with Failte Ireland last year (October - December, 2017). This is the first year since 2012 we haven't accepted any speaking engagements or new projects, and she actually went out and got a "real" job for the first time since 2012 while I focus on this.
I still have a small contract with a friend helping her build her travel magazine, but it's less than 10 hours a week of work; I spend, on average, 80 hours a week on Stormhaven Studios and Saga of Lucimia.
Also, we've been in early access since September of 2015
I always love comparing because it gives us such a clear window of progression. Here's the video from a couple of days ago (80+ FPS, stable networking framework since 2016, a few optimization runs, new UI, balance pass, though still shit animations and a lot of other pre-alpha fun)
And then compare it against our first official login video from September of 2015 (when we had rubber-banding, graphical lag, hitching, zero optimization, and MAYBE 15-20 FPS:
Still a long way to go, but it's fun to watch the progress. Sometimes it feels like we're just treading water when we are working on iterations and trial/erroring things, but then I can watch things like this and go /fistpump.
Stay tuned; I'll have a few new videos coming out next week, plus we have our Friends & Family test session on the night of the 28th, and I always record footage of that and put it together for the latest What's New In Release #(insert latest build number here) blog post.
https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/475905/who-can-relate-what-hard-is-to-me-in-mmorpgs#latest
Both have not gone into full advertising mode yet. Pantheon seems to have the far edge with word-of-mouth compared to Saga of Lucimia,
I want both. I don't put one above the other as far as wants and likes.
HOWEVER.... I have a feeling (just a feeling) Saga of Lucimia has the edge simply because their more reasonable with choice of graphics and coding.
Some day !
https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/475905/who-can-relate-what-hard-is-to-me-in-mmorpgs#latest
Hiden (Jap., ‘field of compassion’). Buddhist actions of supporting the poor or needy. Since these produce merit, they are compared to a field which brings forth a great harvest.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/hiden