Camelot Unchained MMO

That's fine with me. But if you think he can actually make a game anyone would be satisfied for years is crazy. I don't think he can pull it off.

You obviously never played DAOC nor followed it's die hard fans. It's not that hard to make a good niche game with a solid leadership team. Jacobs already has done this before.

Hell, WAR came pretty close, if they'd just used a better engine (mythic seconds) and made a few crucial decisions differently (who the fuck thought only 2 factions was a good idea?) it could have been an amazing game. There was a lot of fun gameplay and cool innovation there, they just didn't capitalize on it properly.

Seeking feedback on mounts vs. speed classes
Bring on Speed of Sound 5!

I definitely like the idea of having mounts as a utility to carry shit around such as supplies, siege equipment, people, etc. and leaving the true movement speed to the support classes like Bards.

Just don't restrict speed to specific classes, give every class a long term, easily broken speed buff (can be a mount if you want, as long as getting attacked is an auto-dismount) and then a variety of short term situational ones. And most of all, don't make whatever the baseline runspeed is feel like you're running through fucking quicksand.

Speed was never a game changer. I like there being a single 'bard like' class. Unique abilities are good. Hell, even Left Axe was bearable. Permanent invisibility is a terrible design decision, but it was capable of being overcome by a good group. The only thing that can't is a poorly designed stun or mesmerize. The success of this will probably come down to crowd control, and how it's implemented. It was just awful in DAOC at release.

Gecko_sl said:

Denaut, trying to up the hit count to your blog, mate? There's zero substance in your argument except an ad hoc against Jacob's writing style. Jacob's posts are half part sales, half part hyperbole, but what would you expect from someone trying to raise funds and build interest in a saturated market, who probably is using the majority of his time on building said game?

I personally think DAOC is one of the beter designed MMOs, I've played. Frontiers and Darkness Falls setups, especially. Warhammer had a good design before they pasted much of WOW on top of it and it's problems were more technical.

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I am obviously not Josh Sawyer. For one I've never worked at Obsidian (only with online games) and two, I live in Europe now.

Do you meanad hominem? Becausead hocdoes not mean what you seem to think it means. Furthermore, you clearly possess no reading comprehension what-so-ever. While his writing style is unclear, meandering, and unprofessional I attacked his ideas directly. At least, what Ithinkhis ideas are, because he is pretty horrible at explaining them in any kind of complete manner so I could mostly only suppose what his full idea was and then explain why it is wrong. I suspect that is because his ideas are actually also quite incomplete, part of the reason he is a total hack and poor designer.

The merits of DAoC are irrelevant to my analysis of his proposals for a couple of reasons. You don't know how much of the game was directly from him, or made in spite of him. The leaders of projects get all sorts of undue credit which you later learn on the inside had nothing to do with them, both good and bad. At this point in my career I've met enough designers to know that what project they worked on is almost completely unrelated to how good of a designer they are. I've met incredibly good designers that have worked on completely worthless games and utterly terrible designers that have worked on amazing games.

Unless you know specifically what they did to a decent degree of detail and how they did it then you really cannot judge someone's ability by their works alone. Mark was nice enough to start a blog in which we can be granted insight into his thought process, by which we can see it isn't very sophisticated. In fact it is far, far below what I would expect someone with his experience to have.

Gecko_sl said:

This shouldn't be an 'us and them' oldschool argument but a simpler one looking at what is effective and if the strategy being used for this game will be effective.

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I agree with you. Old games are full of good, and bad, ideas. Knowing about them gives us context for the consequences of our designs. What I am saying is that Mark is totally incapable of doing this in a meaningful manner because he lacks the ability to comprehendwhysomething worked or didn't work andwhatspecifically about it did. He cannot distill things down to their core essence in order to see new avenues in which it might be approached.

Denaut_sl said:

I agree with you. Old games are full of good, and bad, ideas. Knowing about them gives us context for the consequences of our designs. What I am saying is that Mark is totally incapable of doing this in a meaningful manner because he lacks the ability to comprehendwhysomething worked or didn't work andwhatspecifically about it did. He cannot distill things down to their core essence in order to see new avenues in which it might be approached.

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Generally I agree with much of what you have to say, but this is where you go off the rails. Making fun games is as much a creative process as a design process. And the creative process cannot be quantified into any specific formula. If it could then there wouldn't be any bad music, movies, art or games. You are falling victim to the faulty notion that many tech people fall into. I suspect you have poor relations and a deer in the headlights look whenever you deal with artists.

Mark's main job is to secure funding. His notions may seem simple and trite to you, but he is just sketching an outline. There isn't any need to go into specific details this early in the game and it would be counter productive. He doesn't know how much money he will have to play with so his "vision" can only be in broad strokes. Mark's posts are more about generating hype than actual design because getting funded is his first priority.

When (IF) his kickstarter is successful then he'll be better able to define the devilish details you are so enamored of. But I suspect he'll hand that off to somebody else at that point. And probably somebody more in tune with your technical notions of what good design is.

Denaut_sl said:

ad hocdoes not mean what you seem to think it means. Furthermore, you clearly possess no reading comprehension what-so-ever. While his writing style is unclear, meandering, and unprofessional I attacked his ideas directly. At least, what Ithinkhis ideas are, because he is pretty horrible at explaining them in any kind of complete manner so I could mostly only suppose what his full idea was and then explain why it is wrong. I suspect that is because his ideas are actually also quite incomplete, part of the reason he is a total hack and poor designer.

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Yup, I meant ad hominem, but as I multitask and post via breaks at work I tend not to do a ton of proofreading. This is similar to others who don't have all day to peruse obscure gaming blogs and be haughty and douche-ish on friendly MMO forums. Why all the anger there, dude? Jacobs lay you off or something?

Anyways, I am an extemporaneous poster. How's that for a big dollar word? My engineering degree dun include a bit of English, although nothing like one o' dem liberal arts types. I'll try and live up to your grammar nazi level of detail you demand from my posts, Hans. *sarcasm tag alertz*

The merits of DAoC are irrelevant to my analysis of his proposals for a couple of reasons. You don't know how much of the game was directly from him, or made in spite of him. The leaders of projects get all sorts of undue credit which you later learn on the inside had nothing to do with them, both good and bad. At this point in my career I've met enough designers to know that what project they worked on is almost completely unrelated to how good of a designer they are. I've met incredibly good designers that have worked on completely worthless games and utterly terrible designers that have worked on amazing games.

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So, even though he ran Mythic, the title they shipped has no bearing on him? Really?

I have no idea how much of this current game he'll actually be designing, so wouldn't your point regarding DAOC also equally apply to it?

Denaut_sl said:

Unless you know specifically what they did to a decent degree of detail and how they did it then you really cannot judge someone's ability by their works alone. Mark was nice enough to start a blog in which we can be granted insight into his thought process, by which we can see it isn't very sophisticated. In fact it is far, far below what I would expect someone with his experience to have.

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gotta agree with this sentiment. maybe how he is portraying his thoughts is the right PR way of selling interest or maybe his poor writing doesn't correlate into his design etc -- but i don't like it.
for that reason.. i'm actually glad that there is a legal age of consent; people are all too ready to swallow down lofty ideals and grandize them instead of criticizing/reducing it down. it's only slightly better than politician's talk -- he seems genuine (all the more dangerous) and maybe that is the right way to get alot of interest going without giving away their trade secrets but, ung =\

Grim1_sl said:

Generally I agree with much of what you have to say, but this is where you go off the rails. Making fun games is as much a creative process as a design process. And the creative process cannot be quantified into any specific formula. If it could then there wouldn't be any bad music, movies, art or games. You are falling victim to the faulty notion that many tech people fall into. I suspect you have poor relations and a deer in the headlights look whenever you deal with artists.

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You are completely right, there is no specific formula for making art. I mean, there are some general principles, but then violating those principles in a novel or clever way is often what it takes to achieve acclaim and success .

I think you are misunderstanding what I said though, or the creative process in general. At its core creativity is about problem solving. You can't separate creativity from any of the disciplines you might find working on a game. Design, art, code, and management all require both knowledgeable and creative minds.

I have an excellent working relationship with artists because we establish shared goals together. Ideas come from many places, some high level, some low level, some detailed and some abstract; but the next sentence is always about where that idea leads at a much more fundamental level.

Mark's main job is to secure funding. His notions may seem simple and trite to you, but he is just sketching an outline. There isn't any need to go into specific details this early in the game and it would be counter productive. He doesn't know how much money he will have to play with so his "vision" can only be in broad strokes. Mark's posts are more about generating hype than actual design because getting funded is his first priority.

When (IF) his kickstarter is successful then he'll be better able to define the devilish details you are so enamored of. But I suspect he'll hand that off to somebody else at that point. And probably somebody more in tune with your technical notions of what good design is.

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His problem is actually the opposite. He leapeddirectlyinto the insignificant or contextual details without first establishing any kind of concrete goal or vision. His vision appears from reading publicly available information to be a collection of disjointed and loosely connected specifics. Now it might not actually be that, but then his ability as a communicator is rather suspect. Being able to clearly communicate your ideas or desires is probably the most important part of leading a company when building a game. It comes second to even how good of a designer you are.

He does not inspire much confidence in me, certainly not enough for me to give him money. That is a marketing problem as well. That might not matter.

I read, at this point, most of his blog and I still have no idea what the game is about.

Blackwulf_sl said:

I read the blog by Sawyer you linked, and while I found it interesting, I'm not sure I agree with him completely. To clarify, I agree that a designer should have a clear plan and design a system so that the tools available to a player are grouped appropriately (as he described in the example of haste and fireball in D&D), but I'm not so sure I agree that it should always be obvious to the player. He describes it as giving the player more time with the tool and less time wondering what he wasn't "getting." Part of the fun in a complicated game, to me, is figuring out how best to use the tools the designers have made available. In a game that incorporates pvp, it's even more fun when you figure out interesting uses for those "tools" before the competition.

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Well, there are two different things there. The is knowledge of what you are getting and every way you can use it in every intricate situation are two different things. His chess analogy is a good example. You can learn the rules in a couple of minutes, and have an excellent idea of how everything works and basically where to use it. From the get go it is obvious that an individual pawn has the least power, with the queen having the most. You know roughly their attacks and what they are suited for.

Being able to use them at a high level in a complicated chess game is a completely different story though. That is where the fun is, not trying to figure out what a piece does, but how to use it in an almost infinitely variable set of circumstances.

Gecko_sl said:

Yup, I meant ad hominem, but as I multitask and post via breaks at work I tend not to do a ton of proofreading. This is similar to others who don't have all day to peruse obscure gaming blogs and be haughty and douche-ish on friendly MMO forums. Why all the anger there, dude? Jacobs lay you off or something?

Anyways, I am an extemporaneous poster. How's that for a big dollar word? My engineering degree dun include a bit of English, although nothing like one o' dem liberal arts types. I'll try and live up to your grammar nazi level of detail you demand from my posts, Hans. *sarcasm tag alertz*

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I've never worked for Jacobs. I get annoyed at him in the same way you would if there was someone of your profession spouting nonsense and making your already not very well respected discipline look even worse. For someone falsely whining aboutad hominemattacks you certainly like using them. I went through it on I think it was a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, yes that means I have all day to spend reading obscure blogs.

Not take message boards seriously is fine, most people don't and shouldn't anyway, but if you are going to reply to my posts could at least bother reading them? I don't think that is too much to ask.

So, even though he ran Mythic, the title they shipped has no bearing on him? Really?

I have no idea how much of this current game he'll actually be designing, so wouldn't your point regarding DAOC also equally apply to it?

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It does. But, like I said, as the only source of information about someone's chops as a designer it is pretty thin evidence of their abilities. I then pointed out in the very same paragraph we luckily have a blog full of examples. If you had bothered reading what I wrote you would see that I used specific examples of Mark's very words to show why he is a)a bad designer, b)terrible at written communication or c)both.

For all I know Mark might assemble a crack team of designers and then let them make a masterpiece, but I wouldn't gamble my money on it.

Tmac47_sl said:

DAoC was still fun though, even with all the imba AE mez spammage. Balance != fun and the skald is one of my favorite classes to date.

However, I do agree. I think they learned a lot about RvR balance in DAoC, which is why a lot of their decisions for WAR were so baffling. Maybe, that's why Jacob's blogs with such...angst?...when referring to some of those decisions in WAR. Without knowing what exactly happened, I can only assume he wasn't a fan of the two-faction system.

I think Jacob's did a lot with DAoC and there are a ton of ideas that could be revamped, reskinned, reinvisioned, and rereleased into a blossoming success. Or, ya know, they could screw the pooch. All is speculation until we see the Betas.

Everyone in this mug is QQ'in about the risk a game like this is on Kickstarter, but no one has even considered what risks these games always are. Jacob's is just giving us the opportunity to be the communal VC for a change. It's a novel idea. Let's see if it holds water. I kinda hope it does, but I'm definitely not holding my breath.

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On one side I agree that DAOC was great fun. The group vs group combat was excellent, and the relic raids and Darkness Falls configuration did foster a large sense of community. The game also came out at the perfect time. On the flip side I really disliked the onslaught of nerfs based primarily on inept team leads, and the lack of overall class vision and kneejerk reactionism. Someone above rightly said fun != balance and their goal was too much balance and changes based on forum whining.

I do like the fact they are focusing the new game on PVP and not trying to make a PVE game.

I'm still curious who exactly was driving the ship in regards to the development and design for Warhammer. I need Ut to come in and give me the info in regards to what exactly happened there, and why it went from an initially good design to more of a WOW clone, and what Jacobs part in that fiasco was at the time.

I'm not a fan of kickstarter. I think the whole platform is a boondoggle, but especially for a guy who is an industry insider and should be able to secure funding on his own. If anyone should be able to build a small development studio, I'd think it'd be Mark Jacobs. Although, if I were in the guys shoes and had his resume, I'd probably do the same thing and get as much of the money from the community as possible to limit my own personal risk.

Denaut_sl said:

You are completely right, there is no specific formula for making art. I mean, there are some general principles, but then violating those principles in a novel or clever way is often what it takes to achieve acclaim and success .

I think you are misunderstanding what I said though, or the creative process in general. At its core creativity is about problem solving. You can't separate creativity from any of the disciplines you might find working on a game. Design, art, code, and management all require both knowledgeable and creative minds.

I have an excellent working relationship with artists because we establish shared goals together. Ideas come from many places, some high level, some low level, some detailed and some abstract; but the next sentence is always about where that idea leads at a much more fundamental level.



His problem is actually the opposite. He leapeddirectlyinto the insignificant or contextual details without first establishing any kind of concrete goal or vision. His vision appears from reading publicly available information to be a collection of disjointed and loosely connected specifics. Now it might not actually be that, but then his ability as a communicator is rather suspect. Being able to clearly communicate your ideas or desires is probably the most important part of leading a company when building a game. It comes second to even how good of a designer you are.

He does not inspire much confidence in me, certainly not enough for me to give him money. That is a marketing problem as well. That might not matter.

I read, at this point, most of his blog and I still have no idea what the game is about.

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I still read his posts as more hype than design. The details he mentions are just talking points targeted at a specific audience he is trying to get money from. Which is typical of all money men. Getting funding is the most important job there is in any industry. It doesn't matter how good a designer you are if you don't have the funds.

I once worked with an engineer who couldn't design himself out of a paper bag, but he was excellent at getting high dollar contracts from clients. When the mid 90's recession hit the "good" designers were let go and he stayed on. But he didn't stay on for long.. he eventually formed his own company and makes millions now. He hires and fires the real designers, he just gets the contracts (funding).

Mark is carving a new funding path for mmos. I'm sure he could do a better job of it, but this is largely untried and unproven so mistakes will be made. But the real selling point for most people who will donate to the kickstarter is his name. He and Daoc are tied at the hip, just the promise of something similar will be enough to get most people who want Daoc2 to open their wallets. Whether it will be enough to actually get the game made is the real question.

Grim1_sl said:

Mark is carving a new funding path for mmos. I'm sure he could do a better job of it, but this is largely untried and unproven so mistakes will be made. But the real selling point for most people who will donate to the kickstarter is his name.

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I just wish this untried, and unproven path was being tried by someone else. Kickstarter has potential to see lots of smaller niche games hit the market that normally would of never had a chance. I don't want incompetence to risk that potential until it has had a honest chance to succeed. Simply put I don't trust him and no one else should either. People like Brad McQuaid, Mark Jacobs and Richard Garriott don't deserve a free pass just because they helped pioneer the industry. They can't keep falling back on projects they made over a decade ago as a way to sell their "vision" to people today. I respect their contribution to the industry, but their recent work is FAR more important then their ancient shit. EverQuest, DAoC, and Ultima Online are all irrelevant at this point. Talk to me about Vanguard, Warhammer, and Tabula Rasa. That is what investors SHOULD be asking. Even if those investors are just everyday gamers using Kickstarter.

I don't want the first Kickstarter MMO to be a massive piece of shit. MMO players are pretty jaded as it is and it could hurt the fundraising by a team that might actually make a great modern EQ, DAoC or UO type game.

Bard was probably my favourite class to play... pure support/interrupts, it was great.

Minstrels and Skalds were also a lot of fun, and were crucial to any group that wanted to be able to travel at speed 6/have SOS to get away. I actually liked the Bard in RIFT as well. I think these buff type classes are often over looked in games that go for the smaller class number approach. I don't expect to see it in TESO, but I am hoping CU will bring it back.