Don’t you wish someone :cough: could have said in the past that Fantasy EVE would be something a few people might be interested in? Bet that guy’s blog is an awesome read…
Self-pats aside, the Crowfall Kickstarter is live, and perhaps will be fully funded by the time I hit publish on this blog. The money is rolling in fast, really, really fast. Again, funny how the ‘niche’ that is more ‘hardcore’ PvP-based MMOs works when you give people something above terrible to wallet-vote towards.
For me the best part of the kickstarter is it doesn’t come across as promising to be everything to everyone. The goal here isn’t to create an ‘accessible’ ‘mass market’ MMO. This is a game aimed at a niche (people who like MMOs for the sake of playing an MMO, not logging into an sRPG with global chat), that will build on the core ideals of the MMO genre before the genre went into the toilet and became a series of poorly-disguised cash-grabs and F2P failures.
Which is not to say Crowfall is guaranteed to be amazing. It could very well suck if basic stuff like combat or progression is poor. Making an MMO is hard; making an EVE-like MMO has shown to be impossible for all but one studio. But my money, quite literally, is on the team behind Crowfall to get it right, or at least more right than most others.
Now the wait begins, though hopefully alpha does hit this summer, which isn’t THAT far away.
Hardcore Casual 
I’m always happy to see another PVP MMO. I don’t like their claims that PVP and persistance are impossible or that real persistance is a hard reset (huh) but I like a few other features.
PVP plus persistence isn’t impossible (eve), but I think it’s generally unsatisfying without eve’s economy and item-loss systems. Economies are difficult to design and a lot of work to build if you want depth. Item-loss is pretty unappealing to many players.
Going to have a post up tomorrow (hopefully) about the world reset thing, its a pretty complex issue but if pulled off right, could really be awesome.
I just surprised myself with how much money I gave them. I don’t even like PvP — but I love playing in an online world that *has* PvP even if I am not doing it. Plus their design sounds great and I want it to work.
“Fantasy EVE” would rock.
I was surprised to see you write this. I had thought you hadn’t made up your mind yet on Crowfall. Glad to see the spoiler/Kickstarter launch has changed your mind.
I think I’m just gonna throw $60 at the kickstarter if only because that’s what I’d reserve for the game anyways.
They seem to be farther along then a newly announced MMO should be though. So I’m fairly certain the Kickstarter serves more publicity than funding purposes for that team.
I don’t know what I think about this project. On paper it seems very interesting and a very competent team is helming it, but at the same time, they chose to go the b2p route which makes absolutely no sense.
Here’s another game that has far less exposure and started its kickstarter at the same time:
This one seems to have a more interesting approach. I would be curious to see you comment on it.
99% sure Trails of Ascension is a scam.
Prior to that Kickstarter, they were collecting money already and selling a crazy amount of stuff in their cash shop, without even having so much as anything close to a playable game.
I don’t know if it is or isn’t a scam.
Looks more like people working for 10 years on a project and really trying to get it done. A b2p mmo is more of a scam / cash grab.
That said, I haven’t followed either super closely. A friend of mine is following TOA éand already gave, that’s why it got me curious. He’s generaly cautious.
I’m shocked that crowfall got so much yet TOA so little. On paper, TOA is much more interesting and seem to have a more sustainable plan than crowfall.
It’s crazy the difference good communication makes.
Dig deeper into TOA, there is a lot of unorganized info about why its likely a scam scattered around.
One example I’ve had confirmed: In a lot of their ‘preview’ videos, they are using all standard Unity assets, with the only really noticeable change made is that they broke the default engine camera and haven’t been able to fix it prior to making the video. Is a group that technically limited really going to deliver an MMO as feature-complex as they claim to be making?
I’m not sure what is being proven here. The mass market MMOs you deride don’t have to go to kickstarter for their funding. They can, even now, find investors the standard way. Once you’re on kickstarter you’re already in a niche market, so success or failure there speaks primarily to the level of interest in your particular niche.