My understanding (correct me if I'm wrong - I backed the KS) is that yes, it is like Diablo, but that's not an MMO though.
Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO
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iannis
Musty Nester
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That right there is what you'd call an insurmountable problem.
He's looking for investors, not kickstarter contributors. 800k just to set up an office? Really?
Really?
It's software. You need to come to terms with the fact that you cannot afford California anymore.
You see, the thing is -- investors get paid BACK. Well, actually, with Brad I guess they don't.
He should probably move to Rhode Island.
Actually, I can see this kickstarter becoming an incentive for a few other devs to do their own "back to the old school MMO" kickstarter, but this time done right. It shows that there is interest, and there are probably hundreds of devs out there that would like to try their hand at something like this. They can not flaunt Brad's name, but I am not sure if that is such a disadvantage. A well done kickstarter will most likely offset that.
I mean, you would need veterans, not just a couple of newbie developers, but it is not that Brad has assembled the All Time Dream Team.
So I certainly do not think that this is our last chance.
I mean, you would need veterans, not just a couple of newbie developers, but it is not that Brad has assembled the All Time Dream Team.
So I certainly do not think that this is our last chance.
pharmakos
soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
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Why would this be true? The cost and time to make great games is steadily decreasing. There is a market for this game. It's only a matter of time before passionate enthusiasts build it or the numbers go green in a spreadsheet.
All this last-chance talk reminds me of pre-Baldur's Gate RPG talk. Brad is toxic. His KS sucks. If it fails, it's reflective of him, not the game we want.
It will not happen. We've been saying this for years. Blizzard will release FB2.0 with their post-Titan drivel, and the cycle of casualness will begin again.
Quineloe
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Diablo is not a persistent world. It only "exists" when people go there to open up instances. Swamp of no Hope was always up, even when empty. And there was only one Swamp of no Hope. Just having your shit stored on a cloud doesn't make it an MMO.
The key features for me that make something an MMORPG is the one world that every player is on, that you can run into players that you do not know at all. There's room for SOME instancing, but once you only see players in trade hubs like in PoE and never meet anyone in the world then it's just that, an online game with multiplayer options.
In EQ, you could run into a guy you didn't know, who did something completely different in that zone than you are currently doing. That is the key for me that defines the "massive". It's not the number of players on the server, it's the size of the open world where you can meet others. And a 100 square feet merchant hub isn't massive.
Yet all that can still lead to a crappy product. I know you know pathfinder.
I don't think the ks here has been handled well but people acting like a highly polished ks is the key to someone creating a good game. I have seen no evidence to support that correlation.
I believe you play pathfinder and find it lacking. I prefer playing games not ks pages. What gets me the most are that the people most knowledgable and savvy about mmogs are saying "If you want to prove you can make a game we want you have to win at kickstarter."
I am knowledgable enough to know that is irrelevant in this case. I don't need this characters to prove they can make a demo or design doc. I know they can. Certainly that is necessary to attract less experienced and educated players, but people here with their knowledge of the industry and the devs asking to see "proof" that is not even really proof?
I understand wondering about the total funding as it relates to the whole audience and ks. What I don't get is one if the most knowledgeable group of mmog players saying they need to be convinced if they can make a game. Either you believe they can or you don't. If one acts like they are well versed in mmogs but need more text and pics on a ks page to make a decision, not sure what that says about them.
Read my post above this. I think Brads KS is showing that there is interest, other veteran devs will notice, they will also realize that they need to do a much better KS but that it could well be viable. Brad and his 10 buds are not the only veteran devs out there that would like to make such a MMO.
Even if Brads KS fails I think he may have done the genre a service instead of this being the deathblow for old school mechanics.
We need a better pitch, we do not necessarily need Brad.
iannis
Musty Nester
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Eve did it without a kickstarter. It can be done. It can be done by no name newbie devs. The market exists. The concept has been proofed. It cannot be done for free. But that's where the whole kickstarter thing comes in.
For someone so obsessed with the honest and truthful interpretation of reality you sure seem easily inclined to forget the parts of it which don't fit into a pre-determined view of it.
Last great hope? lol. If brad is your last great hope you are literally hopeless.
For someone so obsessed with the honest and truthful interpretation of reality you sure seem easily inclined to forget the parts of it which don't fit into a pre-determined view of it.
Last great hope? lol. If brad is your last great hope you are literally hopeless.
Someone just buy Everquest classic EMU code, stick Unity store bought graphics on it and make it on the cheap. That Kickstarter sounds more realistic and doable.
By 2024, without Pantheon, do you think we will have a MMOG like we've all dreamed and talked about on this forum since the days of EverQuest? Honest answer.
Lithose
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Essentially, from what I've read is you have offline and then "online friends" and then "Online Multiplayer". Online Multiplayer will essentially be an MMO. The world remains persistent in regards to locations and structures and events. So if you own a house, everyone knows it's your house. If there is an orc attack, everyone sees the orc attack. However, it will supposedly have "smart phasing", so the world won't be broken up into servers like a traditional MMO. Everyone will play on one shard, but your client will only load them as needed to populate your area or to illustrate an event. (One example he gave is--say 500 people are in town with you, your game might only load 200 of them. However, it will be sure to load the ones who owns shops and houses in town first, and then second it will load people who share your common interests in the game and lastly it will load people at random to finish up the population needed to make the town feel "alive".)
I'm kind of leery of whether the technology is around that can accomplish that with a high fidelity. Like I don't want to see people just pop into existence because an orc attacked them. However, I do think seamless integration is the future--a lot of problems with MMO's come from limited populations. It sounds like a great experiment, and I hope the MMO portion works out--if it works the way he thinks it will, where population is always there but the resources will only be drawn when needed to make the world feel populated? I think it will be a great, new kind of MMO. But that's putting a lot of faith on systems smart enough to recognize when players should be together and when the assets are just wasted resources on a system.
Lithose
Buzzfeed Editor
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The Diablo reference was to having an online/offline world, not about the nature of the online world. The online world is persistent and always there for everyone. It's always the same from every person and what you do in it is universal for everyone logging on. The only difference is in thegameyou can load up a single player version and play the game like Skyrim, butthat single player character, much like in Diablo, cannotgo into online mode. (Hence the diablo reference--you couldn't port your single player toons into the multiplayer game).
The online Multiplayer has everything you've said an MMORPG is supposed to have--which is why I'm confused as to why it's not considered an MMO (It's not the traditional MMO but it is an MMO). The multiplayer option is a persistent world that always has other people in it. The only difference is servers are dynamic, unlike current modern MMO's, so seperate "servers" can be merged or separated depending on population. But it's not like they are only together in town--he makes reference to seeing people in the wild, and helping them. The multiplayer game is essentially an MMO, just with WoW's new dynamic server system to make sure the population stays within a certain threshold.
This has a ton of benefits. It has some negatives too. Like say, I'm shopping at a store and I see someone talking to the air--this can happen with dynamic servers, because I may be synched with one person, but not the person they are talking to and I absolutely hate this aspect of it because it shatters immersion (Supposedly, his algrythims are super advanced though and after a few weeks this will never happen, because the game will know that person A and B hang out around C, so it will always load them together for C--I will have to see it to believe it). The benefits though can be numerous. You don't need things like dungeon finder, because everyone is already on one server--for example.
It's not an MMO in the traditional sense, but I'd say it's a new "kind" of MMO, for sure.
Two were already funded and funded quickly.... Brad just lobbed a turd at kick starter and was hoping for the best
DickTrickle
Definitely NOT Furor Planedefiler
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Honestly, follow along. Weren't you one of the more ardent supporters before? You and pharmakos are backing up the idea that the fanboys aren't paying much attention.
The 75K was part of a fee for Hero Engine (along with 7% royalties) that Brad rejected, in favor of Unity.
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Fuck you kid. I know you are gargling balls but a highly polished KS is the key to getting the fucking KS funded. Nobody ever said a polished KS was a key to making a good game. Trust me if by some miracle they pull funding out of their asses, there will be plenty of "To much Brown" posts we can argue about later.
You might need a demo or design doc but not everyone who posts here is a fucking oblivious moron either, most of them want a little more substance.
iannis
Musty Nester
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Maybe that's the problem, Dumar. Honest answer: I stopped dreaming about the perfect mmo about 7 years ago and learned to enjoy what was on the merits of what it was. What I thought was a perfect mmo in 2001 is entirely different than what I think a perfect mmo will be in 2015.
I think you're chasing a shadow, man. I think EQ was that powerful of a formative addiction. And if that's all it was I seriously wouldn't care... but it's stopping you from enjoying what is enjoyable. But that's free advice and take it for what it's worth.
But be aware that brad will continue to sell you false hope on kickstarters until he dies. It's how he makes money now.
Vandyn
Blackwing Lair Raider
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Even going by math, at this point the KS would have to overcome a whole lot to make goal. The KS has been out for 10 days now. With an 800k goal, you figure at the very least it needs to average 200k in a 10 day span. Here we are 10 days in and it's still not at 200k and that's accounting for days 1 and 2 when there was a huge surge. You're going to need a number of 'surge' days (going over 20k a day) to overcome the last few days, especially yesterday. IMO the only way you get those kind of surges is if they start showing some real pre-alpha stuff, design docs, etc. I don't think they have any of that.