New MMO Crowfall

[JamesGoblin]

Recently surpassed $10,000,000 funding! :3

Quite fancy for a game kickstarted last year!

Here are three new classes, first Duelist - basically, Van Helsing style guinea pig rogue/assassin, he stealths by digging underground:



...then Minotaur, berserker warrior/tank with quite unusual "tanking" style:



...and Druid, healing / support / range DPS:

[Conqu3rer]

Is this F2P?

[stellvia]

It's a good funding number, but at the same time its in a similar position as Star Citizen: It's a game concept being kickstarted by industry veterans, so you can't really compare it to your regular no-name indie kickstarter.

[Elvine]

Is this F2P?

Buy 2 Play

[JamesGoblin]

It's a good funding number, but at the same time its in a similar position as Star Citizen: It's a game concept being kickstarted by industry veterans, so you can't really compare it to your regular no-name indie kickstarter.

That's flattering comparison, tho it should be said that Crowfall (unlike Star Citizen) completely removed stretch goals more than a year ago, to avoid feature bloat. Also, they are much more focused on making the game instead of making cyber goodies for sale.

Nothing against SC - in fact I think it's future success is extremely important for gaming in general. I'm just giving some context to mentioned numbers, SC is earning insane amounts from backers, but it also spends a lot on making these fancy ships for sale.

[Netherspark]

It might be a good game if classes weren't inextricably linked to specific races.

Well, and that it has deer and hamster people....

[prwraith]

Isn't crowfall like 99% pvp. :/ those mmos always fail which is a shame because this otherwise looked good.

[JamesGoblin]

Isn't crowfall like 99% pvp. :/ those mmos always fail which is a shame because this otherwise looked good.

I guess people are thinking of Crowfall as of huge battleground (say, vanilla Alterac Valley just much bigger) or, say, Darkfall or <insert failed PvP MMO name> just with different skin, which is not really the case here. I guess PvP will be happening 10-20% of the time here, possibly less. Or even 0% if one chooses so.

Also, they are very aware of their nicheness (hmm...is this even a word?) and are prepared, in advance, for relatively small playerbase - far from WoW numbers, or even far from EVE at it's peak.

[Post]

I guess people are thinking of Crowfall as of huge battleground (say, vanilla Alterac Valley just much bigger) or, say, Darkfall or <insert failed PvP MMO name> just with different skin,

Probably because that's all these vids seem to be.

[Deleted]

It might be a good game if classes weren't inextricably linked to specific races.

Well, and that it has deer and hamster people....

The issues i have with the game too... Not that much deer and hamster people, much more the linking of classes to specific races.

[JamesGoblin]

Probably because that's all these vids seem to be.

Yep, these do look like MOBA - building, destruction, economy, guilds, character customization etc. are yet to come.

I mean, I don't blame anyone - I'd likely make same assumptions on the first glance. I'm just trying to explain.

[Extremities]

What sort of PvE elements does this game have? I am considering buying into it as all the games right now are currently getting stale, WoW included I know it's a PvP game but if done well(Similar to DAoC) PvE can have its place in this as well. Do mobs drop gear or is gear alllllll player crafted?

[JamesGoblin]

What sort of PvE elements does this game have? I am considering buying into it as all the games right now are currently getting stale, WoW included I know it's a PvP game but if done well(Similar to DAoC) PvE can have its place in this as well. Do mobs drop gear or is gear alllllll player crafted?

If you want to play Crowfall for classical PvE, then...just don't. It has as much PvE as EVE Online =)

What I mean by classical: quests, grind (yes, some enjoy this!), dungeons, boss fights... There will be NPCs to farm, there'll even be mini-bosses in open world, but no instances or epic gear drops or anything alike. They'll be there to guard places or give you meat/fur etc.

Speaking of economy, more-less everything will be player-made, including buildings. Economy should be similar to Star Wars Galaxies (it's virtually made by ex-lead SWG designers that now work in Crowfall) and general meta should be similar to EVE, Crowfall is often referred to as "medieval EVE".

So, there will be lots of building and crafting (and gathering and transport and pillage and fighting over mines and mills...) with NPCs and occasional mini-bosses to kill, and gear / progression will be based on gathering + crafting + item decay (even buildings will decay, requiring repairs i.e. resources over time) and NOT on quests or "endgame" dungeon grind.

[Varaben]

It might be a good game if classes weren't inextricably linked to specific races.

Well, and that it has deer and hamster people....

The only thing is they aren't classes, they are archetypes. And linking different races to every class is incredibly time-consuming. IMO, that's a good design choice for launch. Is it ideal to meet everyone's needs? Obviously not, but from an efficiency standpoint, it's a smart choice.

[JamesGoblin]

The only thing is they aren't classes, they are archetypes. And linking different races to every class is incredibly time-consuming. IMO, that's a good design choice for launch. Is it ideal to meet everyone's needs? Obviously not, but from an efficiency standpoint, it's a smart choice.

Efficiency aside, the opposite extreme are abominations such as Tauren Paladins (Rogues soon?), Dwarf Shamans and Gnome Warriors...

[Extremities]

If you want to play Crowfall for classical PvE, then...just don't. It has as much PvE as EVE Online =)

What I mean by classical: quests, grind (yes, some enjoy this!), dungeons, boss fights... There will be NPCs to farm, there'll even be mini-bosses in open world, but no instances or epic gear drops or anything alike. They'll be there to guard places or give you meat/fur etc.

Speaking of economy, more-less everything will be player-made, including buildings. Economy should be similar to Star Wars Galaxies (it's virtually made by ex-lead SWG designers that now work in Crowfall) and general meta should be similar to EVE, Crowfall is often referred to as "medieval EVE".

So, there will be lots of building and crafting (and gathering and transport and pillage and fighting over mines and mills...) with NPCs and occasional mini-bosses to kill, and gear / progression will be based on gathering + crafting + item decay (even buildings will decay, requiring repairs i.e. resources over time) and NOT on quests or "endgame" dungeon grind.

Awesome, thank you for this tidbit!

I'm not looking for your traditional PvE side of things like you mention, dungeons, raids, etc, etc. but more so SOME PvE. Games that tend to lend themselves as being more of a PvP game are fine but having some elements of PvE does not harm those games at all. It only benefits it. For example - DAoC- Had *some* PvE but more so was a PvP/RealmVRealm game and that to this day is still one of the funnest games I have played. Having that break from one or the other is a good thing and having 1 shoved down your throat constantly while fun at first comes rather redundant after awhile. And games that have labeled themselves as nothing but PvP with hardly ANY PvE at all, for the most part, have failed to capture any large audiences. So, that said, I just hope It has SOME PvE elements to it.

Also, I can't find any info on it other than some rather vague answers but are most of the classes gender locked or no? I read an article from a dev stating that a good amount of them are NOT gender locked but gave no explanation as to which ones weren't

[Independent voter]

It looks like a fun game from the few videos I've seen.

* The character models are like Overwatch in that there isn't much customization, I think they said there will be a male and female of each class.

* There is a ton of skills in several skill trees you can pick from, the person you might think is a tank from his model might be more of a healer.

* There will be a permanent pve world where you can build player housing, towns etc.

* But it's mostly a pvp game, a lot of crafting materials and resources will come from pvp. They said crafters might accompany pvp'ers to craft stuff for the war effort behind the lines.

My guess is there is a always going to be that one OP build which will be posted to the internet that everyone will copy.

[JamesGoblin]

Awesome, thank you for this tidbit!

I'm not looking for your traditional PvE side of things like you mention, dungeons, raids, etc, etc. but more so SOME PvE. Games that tend to lend themselves as being more of a PvP game are fine but having some elements of PvE does not harm those games at all. It only benefits it. For example - DAoC- Had *some* PvE but more so was a PvP/RealmVRealm game and that to this day is still one of the funnest games I have played. Having that break from one or the other is a good thing and having 1 shoved down your throat constantly while fun at first comes rather redundant after awhile. And games that have labeled themselves as nothing but PvP with hardly ANY PvE at all, for the most part, have failed to capture any large audiences. So, that said, I just hope It has SOME PvE elements to it.

Also, I can't find any info on it other than some rather vague answers but are most of the classes gender locked or no? I read an article from a dev stating that a good amount of them are NOT gender locked but gave no explanation as to which ones weren't

In other words, there will be lots of PvE, and high quality one - unless one limits the definition to quests, dungeon raids and such (which is actually quite common).

Speaking of gender locks, only 4 out of 13 classes are locked (beasts such as deer-man or guinea pig) and even that can change. Namely, Centaurs were only male and Fae Assassins were only female earlier, and both were unlocked to both genders through stretch goals. Of course it's yet to be implemented, current tests are done with cloned classes i.e. more-less zero customization.

It looks like a fun game from the few videos I've seen.

* The character models are like Overwatch in that there isn't much customization, I think they said there will be a male and female of each class.

* There is a ton of skills in several skill trees you can pick from, the person you might think is a tank from his model might be more of a healer.

* There will be a permanent pve world where you can build player housing, towns etc.

* But it's mostly a pvp game, a lot of crafting materials and resources will come from pvp. They said crafters might accompany pvp'ers to craft stuff for the war effort behind the lines.

My guess is there is a always going to be that one OP build which will be posted to the internet that everyone will copy.

A little update on "that one OP build" which is IMO quite unlikely to happen - skill tree & customization overview:

[Azrile]

The simply logic of demand.
There are enough people willing to pay to be able to beta test so develops ask money for it.

I am with you in that I am not willing to pay money to test a product but obviously there are enough people who do.

The answer is Ebay. Back in the day when devs handed out beta keys at events like Blizzcon, the next day Ebay was flooded with people selling them for thousands of dollars. You don´t have to be any type of shrewd businessman developer to see you were missing an opportunity.

[JamesGoblin]

The answer is Ebay. Back in the day when devs handed out beta keys at events like Blizzcon, the next day Ebay was flooded with people selling them for thousands of dollars. You don´t have to be any type of shrewd businessman developer to see you were missing an opportunity.

Just to clarify, what people are paying for here is NOT beta testing, they are giving money for bundles with game box + a bunch of other things, only one of which is test access. "Pay money to test product" is misleading, to put it mildly.