FireWhizzle posted:

That said they still haven't announced any network engi's writing a believable MMO scale solution for UE4.

Also they kinda hosed themselves not making a prototype first lmao. The idea of making a game starts with the ability to make a game.

Ashes of Creation posted:

Great things come from small beginnings. In games, it often starts with vision. From years of being involved in the MMO genre, playing games such as Lineage 2, World of Warcraft, and Final Fantasy 14 (among many others) there always seemed to be something lacking. Sometimes PvP was masterfully incorporated into the game, others had dungeons so fun you forgot what PvP even stood for, while a few had great new ideas that were like a breath of fresh air. The problem always seemed to come with the trade you made in order to enjoy a certain aspect. Our vision is to tie all of these elements together, to make a complete game that specializes not in one category, but rather aims for the ultimate goal of perfection. We know: that’s a tall order.

So we wanted to take a step back, to check ourselves before we wrecked ourselves; to really dive into what makes MMOs so addictive, and why we kept coming back to them. The primary question is: What makes an MMO fun, at its core? Well, it’s got to be the thing that makes an MMO an MMO, right? What separates an MMO from all the fantastic Mass Effects and Dragon Ages and Witchers? It’s the MASSIVENESS. It’s the community and the forums and the competition and the people who you’d never meet in real life. It’s that Massively Multiplayer promise. It’s the people that make an MMO what it is. Not a hotbar or a raid boss or a fetch quest. Those are mechanics, those aren’t the genre.

And there was our answer, and there was our game. We decided to focus on mechanics that bring the idea of community to the forefront. To get people to interact with each other meaningfully – not just to conquer a raid boss, or to get some coin from a faceless auction house, but to maybe save a city. A city that all the local residents had a stake in. A city that the players had spent weeks or months developing; the defense of that city, the attack on that city! Or building a world together as a community choosing our own fate with our friends. We believe that’s going to be a story far more memorable and far more meaningful to players than just about anything we can come up with.

So that’s our design philosophy in a nutshell. Give players reasons to interact, and make those interactions meaningful. And make both of those things feel cool and appropriately epic.

In enters our new MMO in development, Ashes of Creation. As you’ve probably guessed by now, we’re creating an MMO based on our core principles as designers; we believe in choice, organic events, player narratives and massive communities. All of these come together in what we call our “Reactive World.” Players will shape the world we create through dynamic quests, castle sieges, our Node system, an economy that goes well beyond the auction house, and player housing (among many other systems). We’ll set up the initial state, you decide where it goes from there.

We are merely the music makers; you will be the dreamer of dreams.

Ashes of Creation begins with us and ends with you, but there are many steps in between. We’ve incorporated some investors, but primarily my own funding has begun the process and we’re well on our way. The team is dedicated, experienced and enthusiastic about what we will be delivering to you, the player. We’re focused on giving you the version of the game we know you’ll love, and to do so we want to keep this as investor-lite as possible (publishing or otherwise). With this in mind, we plan on starting a Kickstarter in the near future. We believe the crowdfunding platform to be perfect for making a game for the player you actually want to attract. Perhaps most importantly, is that it allows you to be involved with our process. Through both financial and creative transparency you’ll be able to have input with design through the developer’s forums, so you see what we’re working on and what’s on our mind.

You’ll see in the coming weeks exactly what we’ve done and what systems are in place. We’ll be regularly posting dev journals, releasing videos, showing off artwork and genuinely keeping a dialogue with the community. That dialogue is very important to us, we want our community to be constantly (and properly) informed. Make sure to register on the forums and become a part of our world!

The story only begins here, we’re excited to provide the pen and see what you write.

Zaodai posted:

Gullible retards who have currency.

2DCAT posted:

The folks they identified have no experience with netcode and that's honestly the hardest part. This game is going to fail hard.

Also, they don't even have a prototype to show?! Just... Wtf is with companies continuing to do this. Why havent brain damaged customers caught onto this scamming trend yet?

More importantly, why do people take solace in knowing that game programmers from poorly coded games are going to somehow make things better this time around.

Of note... Programmers in the gaming industry are terrible. Like... Laughably terrible. I think I'd trust someone with a history outside of gaming more than I would with a decade within the industry

Pawn 17 posted:

Guys, guys, with this sweet kickstarter money they could hire 10 programmers for 1 year. Including a netcode bro!

I'm curious though, for games like this do they just use the kickstarter money as a sales pitch to VCs? Cause I think an MMO costs like $50+ million to make. And this game could be cool if it ever gets made.

8-bit Miniboss posted:

Pawn 17 posted:

I'm curious though, for games like this do they just use the kickstarter money as a sales pitch to VCs? Cause I think an MMO costs like $50+ million to make. And this game could be cool if it ever gets made.

edit: The vanilla WoW cost over $75M in today's money to make.

Pawn 17 posted:

Guys, guys, with this sweet kickstarter money they could hire 10 programmers for 1 year. Including a netcode bro!

I'm curious though, for games like this do they just use the kickstarter money as a sales pitch to VCs? Cause I think an MMO costs like $50+ million to make. And this game could be cool if it ever gets made.

edit: The vanilla WoW cost over $75M in today's money to make.

Byolante posted:

What VC would fund a pvp sandbox mmo when every piece of evidence points to the moment you didn't have to play a pvp mmo everyone stopped playing pvp mmos.

Pawn 17 posted:

edit: The vanilla WoW cost over $75M in today's money to make.

SweetBro posted:

Vanilla WoW was also complete poo poo compared to most MMOs today and simply had the advantage of being one of the first to market.

Truga posted:

Minecraft is very good, but it's not mmo at all.

SweetBro posted:

Now I know reading every single word in a sentence is hard, but I believe in you.

That's not to mention that on release WoW virtually devoid of content outside of basic theme park grinding which was padded out by its Korea-tier grind rates. Heck, it didn't even have proper PvP support until a year later.

SweetBro posted:

Vanilla WoW was also complete poo poo compared to most MMOs today and simply had the advantage of being one of the first to market.

Blazing Zero posted:

imagine believing the most successful mmo ever made is poo poo. also imagine 'investing' into pvp sandbox mmo #812. sometimes i wonder if mmo hmo posters operate in an alternate universe

Phlegmish posted:

How did Shroud of the Avatar turn out?

Gumbel2Gumbel posted:

Why is anyone comparing a game that launched in 2004 to modern standards. We were playing Grand Theft Auto Vice City on our Playstation 2's when it launched.

SweetBro posted:

Cause people were bringing up WoW's original game budget and I was pointing out that the number was largely irrelevant because although WoW was great for it's time, it's release version is trash by today's standards.

Freakazoid_ posted:

The same generation has also had a niche group that chased down every singe open pvp MMO that ever made it to closed beta, so it's not like a new thing. However, the popularity of modern survival games seems to have reignited an interest in open pvp, so we may see more of this madness in the future.

Cithen posted:

I've always found WoW to be super boring. I've tried getting into it multiple times, but it just doesn't work for me. It feels like I'm doing the same quests with different scenery, all of which have been done by countless others in the same way. Maybe it's rose colored glasses or whatever, but I like the sense of adventure and consequence from games like EQ. Quests and raids were something you found and felt like you were doing them in your own way. I've tried quite a few MMOs and don't think there's been something that has scratched that itch since.

Edit:
That isn't to justify dropping cash on crowd-funding scams like this.