Camelot Unchained

[Morreion]

;D

[dotty]

If Kickstart is successful Mark will kick in 2M, and they've got their first 'Dragonwhale'. Good to know someone is going to toss a pie at Mark and scream "AoT dekcuS!" I'm in for the Young Warrior, and eyeing the Warrior Forever lifetime subscription. Hmmmmm So looking forward to a return trip to Hibernia!

[dotty]

WHY KICKSTART?

As a “niche” and RvR-focused MMORPG, CU is a very risky venture for most traditional game publishers. Even if we did find one willing to take the risk, it would come with so many strings attached we couldn't make the game we want to, or would face constant battling to ensure our vision remains intact. That's why we're attempting to fund some, but not all, of this project’s costs through Kickstarter.

While we at CSE believe in Camelot Unchained, we could be wrong about it having even enough appeal for backers to fund this Kickstarter. We will create this game only if there is a demand for it, so if we can’t get the partial funding we seek, we will not go ahead. OTOH, if we do successfully fund, Mark Jacobs will add $2M dollars to the development budget himself. This is covered in more detail below.

I thought this was interesting insight into the reasons for the kickstart funding. To gauge actual interest in the game, and to prevent game publishers from making their own demands.


/edits/ 3 days in and almost halfway to the goal already. Plus there are THREE pies going to be thrown by the three 10k backers. hehehe ;D

[Regolyth]

Apr 4, 2013 20:33:27 GMT -5 dotty said:

Even if we did find one willing to take the risk, it would come with so many strings attached we couldn't make the game we want to, or would face constant battling to ensure our vision remains intact.

...and to prevent game publishers from making their own demands.

That's my biggest concern. Some big publisher *coughs*EA!Activision*coughs* always seems to put their big noses in, worried only about money, and causes the game to lose focus. This always results in a game that doesn't live up to the hype and ultimately fails (e.g. SWTOR ).

[Laethaka]

estimated delivery Dec 2015-- that's exactly when I'll get back from Africa!!!! ;D ;D

[Morreion]

There's a story behind that, Laethaka- sounds very interesting!

[Laethaka]

tormenting kids who barely speak english with osmosis and solving equations

wait and it's 2013 now so I'll be back Dec 2014 oops

[Morreion]

Dig through the sand(box) in the latest Camelot Unchained devblog (Massively)

Jacobs claims that while CU earns some "sandbox points" because of its relatively unrestrictive class system, it loses some simply because it utilizes a class system. He spends the rest of the post running through the game's list of features and explaining the rationale behind the sandbox elements (or lack thereof) in each one, so if you want to get into the nitty-gritty of Camelot Unchained's sandboxiness (which is now a word), settle in and read the full post at the game's official site.

Camelot Unchained's team puts gameplay over graphics (Massively)

"When it comes down to the sheer number of [polygons], any time we have to choose between that and delivering on our core gameplay, we're going to choose the gameplay," Meggs writes. "That requires certain sacrifices."

Massively Exclusive: Camelot Unchained unveils pledge tiers, seeks feedback [Updated]

...I also wanted to create one more tier that was near and dear to my heart, that of a "bat-sh*t-crazy" collector's edition. Back in the Warhammer Online days, I pitched the idea of an insane CE that we would create with the help of Games Workshop. It would be a truly limited edition and very expensive, but it would set the bar so high for CEs that it would be remembered forever in the annals of BSC ideas. Unfortunately, due to certain issues (including too many people thinking the idea was indeed BSC), it never got green-lit, but it 's a different day and a different studio... so, we are going to create a truly BSC CE. We may only sell a few of them, but it has been fun to think about how to fill up that box and we'll probably add more items to it as our Kickstarter progresses.

Jacobs: 'I don't want F2P/B2P items in Camelot Unchained' (Massively)

Another reader asked about the possible inclusion of B2P/F2P items such as the use of XP boosts, limited time powerful items and other such goodies. Do you see these as being items that the players will be able to buy through their Founder's Points?

While those types have indeed been a staple of both B2P and F2P games, I don't want such items in Camelot Unchained. While their duration might be limited, a sword that gives a new player an in-game advantage over another in combat is a non-starter for me. In terms of XP boosts, while nobody is really hurt if you level a little faster, I just don't want to see those types of items in our game, even if we could make some additional money by including them.

Foundational Principle #13 – Chaos Goes Boing! (Camelot Unchained)

And that brings us to physics. As soon as you make physics part of your gameplay, you open up the possibility for things to happen beyond just the simplistic model of pen-and-paper combat. That castle wall didn’t just “become destroyed”. The chunk you took out landed someplace, and maybe on someone. That fireball didn’t just “miss”. It had a location in the world, and if it didn’t hit what the target then it had to go someplace else. If someone else jumps in the way they’re going to get a nasty surprise — or heroically save their friend! And either way, it’s a story. It’s something that happened to you that didn’t happen to someone else. It’s the stuff YouTube videos are made of.

Camelot Unchained reveals final Kickstarter reward tiers (Massively)

Many of the rewards seem innocent enough, sure: Up to 50 particularly spendy players can drop a thousand bucks in exchange for the opportunity to work with the dev team to design their own custom-built house, for instance. But that same thousand bucks could also be used for the ability to "name a liquid substance" in Camelot Unchained, which is probably one of the more bizarre rewards we've seen in recent times, especially considering the exorbitant amount of money required. And if you're the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or some kind of oil sheikh, pledging a whopping $10,000 (yes, ten thousand bucks) will net you a three-day visit to the studios of City State Entertainment, on the final day of which you'll "get to say the magical words 'AOT DEKCUS' (protip: read that backwards) and throw your choice of fruit pies at Mark Jacobs." If that's not sufficiently surreal for you, then you might be living in an Dali painting.

Camelot Unchained's Kickstarter is live [Updated] (Massively)

[Update: This afternoon, Mark Jacobs conveyed this note to the Massively team: "Wow, what a day and it's not even over yet! I have over 3K messages in my mailbox, we're at 411K (dollars) after 4 hours, and the outpouring of support and affection from the community has been overwhelming. No matter what the outcome of our Kickstarter, I will be forever grateful for the team at CSE and our supporters for making this day happen."]

Camelot Unchained discusses the trouble with rendering engines (Massively)

While the engine isn't built entirely from scratch, it isn't based off of an established engine, simply because it's being custom-built to handle the game's specific needs. The attached video allows you to see the engine in action, scaling from a handful of characters up to the moving mob pictured in the header.

Camelot Unchained Kickstarter update offers a look at the Tuatha De Danann (Massively)

...Two days later the amount pledged nearly doubled, jumping to over $815K of a $2 million goal. Last night, Mark Jacobs posted an update that included additional concept art for the Tuatha De Danann race, or TDD.

Camelot Unchained video shows 1,000 players on-screen (Massively)

Meggs says that the 1,000 characters glimpsed on-screen are only "hitting around six percent CPU load," which gives the team a lot of wiggle room for all of the "prediction, decoding, and lag compensation" tasks it's currently working on.

Mark Jacobs: Camelot Unchained can succeed with just 50K subs (Massively)

In a recent interview, Mark Jacobs stated that unlike some other big titles, Camelot Unchained will be financially successful with fewer paid subscribers. "We don't need one million subs to make money," he said. "If we get 50K paying subscribers a month it will justify the $5 million development budget." Of course, he admitted that they'd certainly be happy with more.

Camelot Unchained update outlines RvR dungeon stretch goal (Massively)

The second stretch goal involves a potential RvR dungeon that hearkens back to Darkness Falls from Jacobs' Dark Age of Camelot.

[Regolyth]

I was reading through some of the updates on the Kickstarter page and saw this. I thought it was interesting.

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.

I really hope this goes well. It's going to be a long wait to find out, either way.

[Regolyth]

If you have thought about helping the CU Kickstarter, now's the time. They have 26 hours left to get the remaining funds needed to get started... and they're only $178,498 away! I thought about upping my pledge today to see if it helps out any.