[Megathread] Camelot Unchained (MMORPG RVR)

[Worgoblin]

tbh I am sick and tired of MMOs... especially when they are funded by kickstarter and shit... I mean AAA title rpgs barely scratch the market and then there comes some guys with a few million(if that) budget and expect god knows what ... ppl don't join mmos en mass unless it's set in a very well known and loved universe... why do you think wow became so popular when it launched?

Huh? I had never played a Warcraft game before WoW. I started playing WoW on launch day because I loved MMO's and it looked like a great game. I knew nothing of the IP.

If Camelot Unchained gets funded and is made, I will play it... because I love RvR.

[Taldier]

tbh I am sick and tired of MMOs... especially when they are funded by kickstarter and shit... I mean AAA title rpgs barely scratch the market and then there comes some guys with a few million(if that) budget and expect god knows what ... ppl don't join mmos en mass unless it's set in a very well known and loved universe... why do you think wow became so popular when it launched? Because most players were Warcraft fans from the previous games... I doubt there were 10% of the initial playerbase that didn't play one of the Warcrafts ... heck when WoW launched Warcraft 3 was my favourite game... and I even played Counter strike with Warcraft mods because I was desperate to get more stuf with the Warcraft feeling... so naturally when I heard they are making a new Warcraft game and that it'll be MMO I was like no fucking way that's like my dream come true ...

so what I'm trying to say is that instead of going straight to MMO they should've made a single player game, see how the ppl like the universe and all and then turn it to mmo... the fact that it's pvp now as a mmo doesn't really matter since they could simulate that in the single player with castle sieges and stuff that depict how the mmo will be like ... just present us with some characters and do some character development, show us the story, make us like the universe and then go with the MMO ...

I'd say the majority of MMO players dont even seriously care about in-game lore.

But that aside, you really think the 'Warcraft" fan base was that huge? Im sorry but thats honestly just outright laughable.

Sure a really well known IP can get you some customers. Something like Star Wars. Now that is a popular IP, it nets you a bunch of automatic customers. But those customers are only temporary, they arent really your customer base because they buy the box once and then quit after a short period. They just wanted to see what you did with the story, they dont have any real connection to the gameplay of an MMO.

The idea that MMO's need to take over the market to be successful is getting very annoying to me. There is no WoW killer. WoW is popular, not because of the Warcraft IP (lol), but because the game itself appeals to the mainstream. Its tuned for casual gamers who mostly just want to socialize. Even if you make an exact copy WoW that is better, people who play WoW wont switch to your game because they would lose any friends who didnt transfer to the new game. WoW is Facebook 3D.

However WoW misses a lot of the traditional gamer market. The sorts of people who played games because they liked the complexity and challenge involved.

Older MMO's thrived on this smaller group of customers, the market as a whole was much smaller back then because gaming wasnt mainstream. But even with those smaller numbers the games didnt feel empty. You dont need millions of subscribers to have a full and active world. You certainly arent going to tell me Everquest was empty.

Thats what CU is here for. To give us a niche game that doesnt have to contort itself around to pander to a mainstream audience. An MMO that can thrive on its own without worrying about its market share. Who cares if other people play something else if we have enough people to have an active interesting world to play in?

[Cruor]

Posts like Skorpionss is one of the many reasons I cant stand to play with most (some of you are ok) younger people. The type that think Fallout 3 is THE Fallout. It wasn't a hostile post, but just ignorant. There WAS a game before CU, its called Dark Age of Camelot, and for its time, it did have a large player base. Id say the vast majority of the backers played DAoC, others want a good pvp game.

Anyway, I'm a backer and I hope the game does well. Im a little worried as its going to be very niche, I personally want to focus on pvp but a little pve is fine, need something to do if I get the day off and my guild isn't online. Solo pvp doesnt get you too far in this type of game, especially since no class will have traditional stealth. (awesome) They also have to get rid of the reliance on the stamina regen classes they had in DAoC/Warhammer.

[Slaughty8]

Thy will surely make a record of kickstarter comments...all those bored ppl are spaming comments and endlessly talk about almost the same stuff over and over. After all, they are old and bored, they will play this game forever. Young ppl and younger playerbase just plays other games/enjoys life by that time.

Thats why I think, is the reason why this has not much backers. Whole concept is only appealing to old, bored, DAoC fanbase. A first mmo for almost-retired ppl

[grandpab]

A first mmo for almost-retired ppl

I'm only 25! and it was my 2nd mmo.

[Treeskee]

I'd say the majority of MMO players dont even seriously care about in-game lore.

But that aside, you really think the 'Warcraft" fan base was that huge? Im sorry but thats honestly just outright laughable.

Sure a really well known IP can get you some customers. Something like Star Wars. Now that is a popular IP, it nets you a bunch of automatic customers. But those customers are only temporary, they arent really your customer base because they buy the box once and then quit after a short period. They just wanted to see what you did with the story, they dont have any real connection to the gameplay of an MMO.

The idea that MMO's need to take over the market to be successful is getting very annoying to me. There is no WoW killer. WoW is popular, not because of the Warcraft IP (lol), but because the game itself appeals to the mainstream. Its tuned for casual gamers who mostly just want to socialize. Even if you make an exact copy WoW that is better, people who play WoW wont switch to your game because they would lose any friends who didnt transfer to the new game. WoW is Facebook 3D.

However WoW misses a lot of the traditional gamer market. The sorts of people who played games because they liked the complexity and challenge involved.

Older MMO's thrived on this smaller group of customers, the market as a whole was much smaller back then because gaming wasnt mainstream. But even with those smaller numbers the games didnt feel empty. You dont need millions of subscribers to have a full and active world. You certainly arent going to tell me Everquest was empty.

Thats what CU is here for. To give us a niche game that doesnt have to contort itself around to pander to a mainstream audience. An MMO that can thrive on its own without worrying about its market share. Who cares if other people play something else if we have enough people to have an active interesting world to play in?

Will have to agree with this, I didn't know anything about WoW when I started playing it same with the majority of my friends who picked it up around the same time we just knew people who played it and that's where it started. Hell, I didn't even play Warcraft 1-2 only 3 and that was in Burning Crusade.

That said, I know nothing of the DAoC story/lore and I'm very excited about this and hope it makes PvP fun and about more than who can gear up the FoTM class faster.

[Slaughty8]

I have lost my excitement after seeing latest updates. Yes, the so called "Smackhammer" only has CU's networking code but still, seeing devs doing unnecessary stuff and wasting their time is above my nerves and I have now no sense of trusting them. There is job to be done.

Also all these presentations of the engine and "how fast it is". On of the answer for "wow, they did awesome job" is the i7 processor, which is a monster vs what we had back in 2008-2009 when WAR was around. Ppl just blindly think that the engine is great, not thinking about the jump of technology possibilities. Any C++/assembler dude can write an engine that will run that way, it is not that hard, although putting together other mechanisms, needed for an MMO, while keeping the performance, is a true challenge, because everything eats resources of a PC.

I just totally left the hype train, withdrawed my pledge and I won't follow their updates, just maybe 2 years later, close to the release, I will take a look at CU to see if it is good or bad and worth my time.

Alot of words from CSE, which I don't believe until I see the results. Only actions truly speak. I am back to blizzard products, GW2 and some single-player games.

[Deleted]

I think Camelot Unchained is a very important project and addressing a very specific, but also very potent niche.

I imagine it will play a lot like an XL version of GW2s WvW, just with a much bigger world and "better" RvR mechanics.

The great thing about this is that there is a huge faction of players who play PvP almost exclusively. I even met a large number in GW2 who displayed no interest whatsoever in ever leaving the WvW zone. Combine that with the players trapped in other weak PvP/RvR games and I think there is a large enough market to warrant such a game.

Then think about how their niche allows them to focus their resources entirely on content that will not be made redundant after reaching level-cap.

Think a moment about just how much MMO content is "wasted" because it's either outdated or made for leveling. I'd argue that more than 90% of content in WoW is left ignored by a vast majority of players. Themepark MMOs are extremely wasteful with the assets they create.

PvP...or better, an RvR focused MMO doesn't suffer from that problem. Everything they create and ever will create will stay relevant through the game's life cycle.

Content also won't get stale nearly as quickly because you'll be fighting players most of the time. Just look at how many billions of hours play-time Blizzard got from a single PvP map like Warsong Gulch. Now apply that to an entire game and it's easy to see why it may never get old.

I also like how Mark Jacobs likes to refer to Guild Wars 2 when it comes to combat design and responsiveness because that's one element GW2 certainly got right.


The guy knows what he wants and has all the right ideas for building an MMO that not only holds your attention span for a few weeks...but something you can really build a community on.

Remember, he's not aiming for a million subscribers. Even 500.000 is a tall order. 100.000 subscribers....a minimal amount by today's standards is all the game needs to succeed. From then on it will grow organically and sustainably, just like EVE Online.

[Slaughty8]

Less talking more doing. All this talk, like Crowe's is just words, a theory. Not worth relying on.

[Deleted]

Less talking more doing. All this talk, like Crowe's is just words, a theory. Not worth relying on.

I'm not sure what your problem is? Yes, talk is cheap but at this stage talk and presentation is more important than anything else.

You realize this project isn't going to happen unless they somehow get enough people invested in it?

I mean accounting for the initial surge right after launch....and a minor support surge towards the end.....this project is currently barely going to make its initial goal. If contributions drop of slightly...it's a very real chance this project won't make it and then all the work is for nothing.

It already has a comparatively small number of backers when comparing it to say...Torment: Tides of Numeria.

Torment had 75.000 backers contributing roughly 4.2 Mio. (roughly 56 dollars per person on average).

Camelot Unchained has 7200 backers contributing 1.2 Mio. (roughly 166 dollars per backer). So the CU backers are on average far more dedicated, but the fact that there are so few is bad news for a prospective MMO.

So yeah, there's a very real chance this project won't get the "go ahead" so working on stuff really isn't a priority now. Getting the word out and mustering support is however.

[Slaughty8]

I have no problem at all with anything. I am saying what I think about this project for now. I hoped to see changed MJ and to see his vision coming true with the quality he wanted and we all wanted. But seeing his latests videos and posts, I am dissappointed, strongly dissappointed. And those damn Rubber Ducks everywhere...it's bad taste, it's trashy, it's horrible, it's tasteless. No level at all. Their sense of humour is just bad and cheap.

Damn man, I had to watch Metzen's interview to feel like a man again and feel better, after latest CSE updates.

I just can't stand current climate they are making. It's horribly trashy.

[Coronius]

I have no problem at all with anything. I am saying what I think about this project for now. I hoped to see changed MJ and to see his vision coming true with the quality he wanted and we all wanted. But seeing his latests videos and posts, I am dissappointed, strongly dissappointed. And those damn Rubber Ducks everywhere...it's bad taste, it's trashy, it's horrible, it's tasteless. No level at all. Their sense of humour is just bad and cheap.

Damn man, I had to watch Metzen's interview to feel like a man again and feel better, after latest CSE updates.

I just can't stand current climate they are making. It's horribly trashy.

I thought the ducks were cute, the jokes were funny and I enjoyed the videos.

That said however, I'm not sure what I think of this project yet. I absolutely love the more hardcore vision and a lot of the new ideas they have, but I can't help but feel that this game will lack depth. Maybe it's just me.

[Slaughty8]

I thought the ducks were cute, the jokes were funny and I enjoyed the videos.

That said however, I'm not sure what I think of this project yet. I absolutely love the more hardcore vision and a lot of the new ideas they have, but I can't help but feel that this game will lack depth. Maybe it's just me.

It is not only You feeling the lack of depth in Camelot Unchained. I feelt exactly the same from the begining and it hasn't changed at all. Games made by MJ and such seriously lack depth, they lack character.
Probably this is one of the reasons why this game is mainly backed by totally bored DAoC fans, and not by wider community. There is surelly a huuuge chance, that this game won't reach it's 2mil goal, average pledge is too high while the number of supporters dramatically (as for said aimed 50k subs) low.

It is a completelly different story than other Kickstarer games. CU has been invented to please oldtimers. Most of those who are and were interested, already pledged. The rest enjoys GW2/other games or just life and may wait until the game will be done. Thy won't risk any $ becase of the history of MJ.

If any of current successful developers made such a Kickstarter, the story would surelly be different.

[Vervacious]

And which developers have been successful besides Blizzard? I certainly wouldn't support the makers of GW2, or any other modern MMO I've played.

GW2 was a heaping pile of dung. Especially the WvW.

I still piddle around with SW:ToR, and I play WoW to stave off boredom, but no game, NO MMO EVER, has been as enthralling as DAoC, and it was created by Mark Jacobs. I believe he can do it again, if he has free reign to focus on the things he needs to focus on. If his hands aren't tied by publishers pushing for a WoW clone. If his hands aren't tied by Intellectual Property.

You may choose to hold WAR against him for all eternity, and that is your right, but I'd rather let it go and have a chance at a game as fun and engaging as Dark Age of Camelot to play.

I'd like for the kiddies who started playing MMOs years after DAoC had come and gone, and have never had the opportunity to experience true RvR, to have that chance.

I'd like for a risk-taker such as CSE to inject some innovation into a stagnant genre.

It benefits you and every other MMO player out there.

[Deleted]

Hinging you like/dislike of a project on a single personality is a bit shallow.

No single designer is every solely responsilbe for a product, especially something as complex as an MMO. I mean Paul Barnett, the Games Workshop dude who did all the PR for Warhammer Online is the guy who got me really excited about the game. And he didn't have anything to do with development.

Granted, in the case of kickstarters and independent games the individual lead designer does have much more influence. That's why you should listen to his/her design philosophy, aspirations, motivations and goals. If that's something you can connect with, you should. If not, that's fine.

The thing about Camelot Unchained is that its design philosophies are very much something I can identify with. Understandably a lot of younger gamers might not be able to because they never experienced some of the old-school MMOs.

Since I very much identified with the design philosophies I assumed others would too. But obviously I was wrong. Maybe it's the wrong approach or it came too soon but clearly there's only a very limited market for a game like CU. 7500 backers really aren't a significant enough basis to build on and if it can't garner more support, it deserves to fail because the market isn't there for such a game.

[Alcsaar]

I do have a soft spot for mass player battles, If it's real-time combat :>

See I'm the opposite, I feel like mass player battles just end up being zergs and player skill becomes meaningless.

Edit: Also 1000th post

[Worgoblin]

See I'm the opposite, I feel like mass player battles just end up being zergs and player skill becomes meaningless.

Edit: Also 1000th post

Skilled groups in DAOC could take out entire zergs, or at least quite a few before getting swarmed down. I find it much more satisfying to win when the odds are against me (and my group). Hopefully with a good group it will be possible to stomp zergs in Camelot Unchained also.

[Slaughty8]

New update on the kickstarter had one interesting thing:
srouce: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...nchained/posts

7) We will release the compiled server code if we shut the game down.
When the day comes that Camelot Unchained is shut down (only WoW will apparently live forever), we will make all the complied server code (and adequate installation and operations documentation) available through a code repository, without warranty of course and under the appropriate license(s) so that gamers can get the game back up and running. In the event that we shut the company down, we will also add the source code to the repository unless prevented to by law/legal agreement.

Good. Too bad we still dunno if this game will be worth it Honestly? I would love a F2P Warammer Online.
BTW: Long live WoW! This game will never die, unless shut down by Blizz (and yet there are tons of pirate servers for like 2-5 usd/month).

---------- Post added 2013-04-16 at 10:10 PM ----------

Also, one more thing, very important:

You can clearly see who takes what seriosly. MJ seems to be not controlling everything. He forgot that he has a website?
Shroud of Avatar kickstarter stats:

What they have?
- more interesting website which is updated with alll the info and kickstarter status https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/
- more appealing rewards
- actual alpha gameplay
- more "we are sure that" info
- PvE
- offline mode
And I loved Tabula Rasa, it was a very nice game. too bad it's dead.

It looks booring somehow, yes, but still, CU lacks:
- updated website with clear info and the status of kickstarter
- updated list of features in a nice and easy to read form
- no pve
- no offline (well, it doesnt matter but still)
And I think that CU, if founded, will last for 2-3 years and later live on a pirate server
Why?
More WoW updates, Wildstar, StarCitizen, Shroud, GW2 expansions, Titan, other games

But CU probably wont be founded, just compare the stats of both games so far. While I believe in CU and it's much much greater art style so far, I can't help it. I hate Shroud's art level and style.

[Worgoblin]

New update shows off another race!

[Wyrmrider]

I'm a backer. Looking forward to trying a game designed exclusively for RvR from the ground up. I hope they hit the first stretch goal so I can main an archer/ranger as usual... otherwise I'll be a primary crafter.

And of course, the second stretch goal... The Depths... mmmmmmmmm.

I get that some people don't like such a narrow focus, but honestly that's my favorite thing about the project. We don't need more bloated do-everything-and-do-it-badly MMOs, we need more niche games that can actually define their audience and serve that audience really well. (I'd love to see a game aimed squarely at hardcore PvE raiders too, but that ain't this one.)

Basically, spaghetti sauce. (http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gla...tti_sauce.html)

Also: the TDD are from Irish history/mythology. That's kind of the point, that's why they fit nicely alongside the Arthurians and the Vikings.