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Incline Trials of Ascension: A Sand box mmorpg

Dr Tomo

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Figured I add a thread on this game since I can't seem to find one on the codex.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/forgedchaos/trials-of-ascension-a-truly-innovative-mmorpg

Some of the things planned for the game
  • Skill based system where you can mix and match skills and they do not degrade like Darkfall
  • Attributes are in place that you can manipulate during character creation and they are: Strength, fortitude, agility, intelligence, vitality, and perception
  • Inventory system aka if you have a lot of loot you move slower
  • You have to eat & drink in the game or else you will move slow from the lack of stamina + food does expire
  • Temperature also can affect your character which stacks penalties
  • Innovation system where you can make unique items and can only be taught to others or taken from you through interrogation skill. Basically crafting unique items and either you can monopolize it or teach it to everyone & each server will be different
  • The economy uses copper, silver, & gold at a 100:1 ratio and will be a player run economy and each region is unique aka some have a abundance of one supply while a shortage of another
  • There is a day&night cycle in which it follows a 24 hour format of 3.5 in real time is day and 1.16 is night
  • There is no mini map and you will need navigation equipment to get a more detailed idea of your location & places you visit like settlements are only updated if you revisit them
  • Traveling there is no loading screens and so there is no such thing as noob zones and depending on terrain & how encumbered you are can determine how slow you move
  • Dynamic Spawning where GM's will have a tool kit that allows them to control the amount of resources spawn in a area to the types of mobs and the # in the location
  • Combat sounds similar to M&B with left your primary wep attack and right shield, with the dodge keys linked to your double tap
  • There is perma death and it only applies once you lose over a 100 life counters
  • Melee weapons will have their individual values on top of the different ranges & unarmed combat will put you at a severe disadvantage
  • Character collision does exist but it takes stamina to pass through somebody
  • Ranged weapons are manually aimed and fired projectiles are not retrievable
  • There are siege weapons in which has stations for players to man to make it functional
  • There is plants, animals, an mineral resources planned with surface mining and tunnel mining where you have to place a mine shaft
  • There are structures that are divided between private and civic also there is private ownership of land which you must continually visit or else it will decay and disappear reverting the land back to the kingdom
  • You can build settlements which is similar to Eve alliances owning territory and you can get players to become citizens of the settlement.
These are some of the things that are planned and there is more info on their website. So far in my opinion I do like the concepts and it is pretty ambitious for the amount that they are asking for on their KS page. Makes me wonder if there is enough people that would be interested in playing such a hardcore mmo. I did contribute to the KS, but unsure if I am going to to be able to stick through the month if it doesn't turn out too bad because the concepts used in this mmo is tougher than Eve.

What do you all think?
 

Scruffy

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Codex 2012 Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014
permadeath?
kiddies won't like it, and adults stopped playing mmorpgs
i foresee failure
 

Dr Tomo

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Looks like Darkfall + Shadowbane. So looks good.

Too bad that this is even hardcore for Eve players as well with all these planned features.

permadeath?
kiddies won't like it, and adults stopped playing mmorpgs
i foresee failure

Perma death is really not a problem since you can easily bypass it with the help of friends or through people's entrepreneurial ability as you do get 100 life counters. The real problems is how weather, terrain, and the pve content is on the extreme side.

Also this a interview of them explaining the reasoning behind the features and to clear up some of the features.
 

Mortmal

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It looks fine on paper , alas every similar projects miserably failed, every single time . You could put the blame on hardcore rules, full loot , but no thats not the core of the problem . Every single games following that formula were done by talentless begginners . Shadowbane, darkfal(devs were really lying bags of shit), i forgot a few other names were bug ridden, unplayable cause of lag , client were unstable, it was a complete mess.

So why will those guys succeed when everyone failed ? I see they are aging, balding neckbeards like me so i could throw a vote of confidence , alas i am sure with not big names on board they wont gather that amount of money.
 

DefJam101

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Holy shit are you telling me there's a full loot open pvp semi-permadeath game in development by a bunch of bearded old guys? This is excellent news.
 

Alchemist

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Actually this looks like incline in every way possible. I wouldn't call them LARP features, more so simulation / survival-oriented.

Here's some things I like about it:
  • Magic is rare and use of it comes with consequences
  • Emphasis on exploration / discovery (no fast-travel, no GPS/mini-map, dynamic spawns require exploration, you can actually get lost in-game)
  • Permadeath
  • Taking away all the features that have dumbed-down MMOs in recent years
  • No floating name-plates that instantly tell you what everything is and how powerful
  • The skill list:
Alchemy
The Alchemy skill encompasses the manufacture of potions through alchemical processes.

Animal Husbandry
Animal Husbandry covers the taming and training of animals as well as the care and maintenance needed to keep them healthy.

Axes
Axes is a combat skill that employs the use of all one-handed and two-handed axes in melee combat. It does not cover the throwing of axes in combat (see Throwing skill below).

Blacksmithing
Blacksmithing skill covers the manufacture, repair and maintenance of metal items, armor and weaponry.

Bone Mending
Bone Mending skill exclusively focuses upon the mending of critical hit skeletal injuries.

Bows
Bows skill is the use of bow missile weaponry in combat.

Bowyer/Fletcher
The Bowyer skill involves the manufacture and maintenance of bows while the Fletcher involves the manufacture of arrows for use with bows.

Carpentry
Carpentry is a crafting skill specializing in the use of tools in the manufacture of wooden items and objects.

Crossbows
Crossbows skill is the use of crossbow missile weaponry in combat.

Culinary
Culinary is ToA's cooking skill. It covers all aspects of cooking a wide range of ingredients for food and survival.

Daggers
Daggers is the use of daggers and other small weaponry in combat. It does not cover the throwing of daggers in combat (see Throwing skill below).

Direction Sense
Direction Sense is a character's ability to determine direction relative to their current position. Compasses and sextants are tools used by this skill to aid the character in theses determinations.

Disguise
Disguise skill is the ability to change a character's physical appearance.

Engineering
Engineering is a skill that focuses on the manufacture of blueprint plans required for the construction of structures and large non-movable items such as forges and stoves.

Field Dressing
Field Dressing is a skill for the treatment and curing of critical laceration wounds that are delivered in combat.

First Aid
First Aid is the skill used in the field for the restoration of lost hit points brought about by any method or cause.

Glazing
Glazing is a crafting skill focusing on the creation of glass items.

Horticulture
Horticulture skill centers on the planting, growing and harvesting of wild and tame plants for a wide variety of uses.

Interrogation
Interrogation is an informational skill used in the extraction of knowledge typically from an unwilling or unconscious target. Interrogating information from such a target is generally considered a criminal activity.

Jewelcrafting
Jewelcrafting is the skill for creating jewelry and polished gemstones from raw gems and nugget ores.

Leatherworking
Leatherworking is a crafting skill that involves the tanning and sewing of raw leather harvested from creatures and fashioned into armor and other leather goods.

Lockpicking
Lockpicking skill involves the use of lockpicks and other tools to assist in the opening of keyed doors, chests or other containers.

Lumberjacking
Lumberjacking is the skill used for cutting down trees and reducing logs into boards for use with other crafting skills.

Maces
Maces skill is the use of various one-handed and two-handed maces melee weaponry in combat.

Mining
This skill involves digging into the ground to recover various nugget ore types for use in other crafting skills. The mining skill includes both surface and subterranean mining.

Pathology
Pathology skill is a type of healing skill centered around the treatment of diseases.

Polearms
Polearms skill is the use of polearm melee weaponry in combat.

Pottery
Pottery is a crafting skill that centers on the creation of clay or earthen containers.

Shields
Shields skill is a combat skill focusing on melee combat defense and shield usage to block and deflect incoming attacks.

Siege Equipment
Siege Equipment skill focuses on the use of all siege weaponry and equipment. It is not the skill for the manufacture of siege equipment.

Skinning
Characters using the skinning skill need a knife or dagger with which to skin leather hides and other resources from a target creature. The greater the skill, the better the chance of successfully harvesting the resource from the creature.

Snooping
Snooping is a skill that allows characters to view inventories of other characters discreetly. The higher one's snooping skill is determines whether a target detects a snooping attempt. This skill's use is generally considered an illegal act and subject to reputation penalties.

Stealing
Stealing is the act of pilfering items from another character's inventory.

Stonemasonry
Stonemasonry is the skill of the stone worker. This skill focuses on cutting and working large blocks of stone into various items.

Surgery
Surgery is a healing skill focusing on repairing critical internal injuries.

Swimming
Swimming is a skill that defines how well characters are able to swim in water.

Swords
Swords skill is the use of sword weaponry in combat.

Tailoring
Tailoring is a crafting skill that uses cloth to weave clothing and other items made of cloth.

Throwing
Throwing is a combat skill that allows characters to throw weaponry and items at targets.

Toxicology
Toxicology is a healing skill focusing on the treatment of poisons.

Tracking
Tracking skill allows characters to track a wide array of creatures including other player characters throughout TerVarus.

Unarmed
Unarmed combat skill is the use of fists and/or feet as weapons in combat.

This is what UO should have evolved into.

Unfortunately they have a massive uphill battle ahead of them to get this off the ground, and the KS funding doesn't look likely. Most younger post-WoW MMO players (the largest market segment) won't like this at all. Older folks who started with UO and original EQ might be into it, but I'm not sure this is enough critical mass to get this funded.

I wish them luck and will probably make a symbolic pledge even though it looks doomed.

Also this a interview of them explaining the reasoning behind the features and to clear up some of the features.

Great interview - it really does explain their philosophy nicely. Worth taking the time to listen to even though it's long.

The video on concealment is pretty cool too. The game will have true darkness that can be exploited for an advantage:
 

Dr Tomo

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This is a opinion piece doubting if the mmo can be made for the amount the studio is requesting. Below it is the comment the developer wrote to clarify the misunderstanding.

What are realistic MMO development costs and can you develop one for under $1M?
MMOs cost a lot of money to develop. Once released, they can bring in an immense amount of money or completely destroy the companies behind them. What is a realistic budget for an MMO and what can we learn from how developers determine them?

First and foremost, I need you to understand that this is an opinion piece. I am by no means an expert on MMO development costs, but I have worked with and managed budgets in the past. I know how unforeseen costs can creep up and surprise the person in charge of the budget, and how seemingly insignificant expenses can become overwhelming and cost far more than originally expected. I’m going to be discussing a current Kickstarter campaign for a sandbox MMO called Trials of Ascension. In reality, I’m very excited for this project. The philosophies and systems Forged Chaos, the developers, are incorporating into the game are interesting, bold, and some are even quite unique. The concepts have me excited, but when I first saw their requested funding marker, I was very skeptical. Forged Chaos are only requesting $750,000 to develop this game. Now, I like to think optimistically, so I’m going to imagine they have invested their own money and, if the goal is reached, assume they might have a little more than the $750k. For the sake of this discussion, let’s say at the end of the campaign, they have $1 million to develop ToA.

Is it plausible to develop an MMO with $1 million?
I’m sure it’s possible to develop an MMO with $1 million, but I’m not sure it’s plausible. If we look to other MMOs as examples, it is clear that a $1 million budget isn’t realistic. For example, Everquest cost $3 million to initially develop (source), a budget over three times the amount being requested for ToA, and that was released back in 1999! Even that budget is tiny compared to that of a modern MMO. By 2003, the average MMO had a $10 million development cost (source) and it has only gone up from there. Another example would be Star Wars: The Old Republic, whichcost over $200 million to develop (source). Granted, Bioware spent an incredible amount of money on voice acting, which shot up the price exponentially, but that is what we expect from a modern MMO, right? But, ToA doesn’t plan to be a “modern” MMO.

Looking on Kickstarter, the developers talk about a “less is more” mentality. What they mean by this is that there will be certain features common to modern MMOs, that will be left out of the game. These features include minimaps, global chat, the ability to see an enemy, NPC, or player’s name, and many others. This concept sounds very interesting and could cut down on development costs, but by how much? In an MMORPG.com article published back in July, Mark Kern, a founder of Red 5 Studios and developer of Firefall, goes into some detail on MMO development costs. He had a lot of interesting things to say, but I want to focus on one jarring statistic. “I would argue that zone creation is about 70% or so of an MMO’s total cost to develop including features, programming, art and world design.” Logically, that would mean the other 30% is spent on the specific systems of the MMO in question.

On the ToA Kickstarter page, Forged Chaos states that approximately 10% of the backers’ pledges will go to Amazon and Kickstarter fees while another 5-7% will go to backer-reward fulfillment (these percentages are of the original $750k). If we look back at my $1 million estimation, that’s $700k devoted to zone creation, $75k for Amazon/Kickstarter fees, and $37k-$52.5k for reward fulfillment. Optimistically, that leaves $172.5k-$188k for 2D art, animation, user interfaces, client/server engineering, database architecture, and network infrastructure. According to the screenshots on ToA‘s website, there are at least four different zones (jungle, plains, mountains, and desert) and all of them will have dynamic spawning of enemies and dungeons, the player-ability to create settlements and build upon them, and many other aspects that will likely ramp up development costs. Can they even achieve that with $1 million? Even that sounds like a bit of a stretch to me. Pile that on with all the other expenses and $1 million just does not seem to cover it.

Closing Thoughts and Best Wishes
MMO development is a massive money sink and can be incredibly destructive if the game is not successful. It’s a very risky business and it must place a massive amount of stress on developers and even publishers. Regardless of my skepticism, I’m really rooting for this project. Trials of Ascension sounds incredibly interesting and I really hope they can manage to develop the game without the influence and restrictions of a publisher. If they can, I feel the game will shine. Unfortunately, the $750,000 mark just doesn’t seem realistic and I’m concerned they’ll run out of money long before development is complete, but I truly hope they prove me horribly wrong. I wish Forged Chaos the best and will continue to follow this project closely as the campaign continues and, hopefully, development begins.

So, what do you think? Do you think I’m right to be concerned with the requested amount or am I wrong? If you agree with me, explain why. If not, please do the same. Are you interested in Trials of Ascension? Why or why not? Do you think it will make it with the declared budget? Let us know in the comments section below!
http://www.gamebreaker.tv/news/can-learn-mmo-development-costs/

Hey Lucas,

Firstly I wanted to thank you for expressing interest in some of our features. We think they’re exciting too! I just wanted to clarify a bit why we have full confidence that we can develop ToA on the budget we’ve set for ourselves. A huge factor here is the Hero Engine, which is not only a graphics engine but a fully integrated online game engine designed specifically for MMOs and online multiplayer games, and very reasonably priced at that. There’s an incredible amount of work that we can skip thanks to Hero that I suspect couldn’t be skipped in 1999 when Everquest was being made.

I also wanted to be a bit clearer about our “less is more” ethos, and how that cuts down our costs. We are not only avoiding costs on things like voice acting, but also completely skipping other developer-resource-intensive content such as NPC quests (we’re confident that the player economy and settlement system will provide plenty of tasks for our players to do). This is the beauty of the “sandbox” MMO. Give the players scripted content and they’ll have a set number of hours of entertainment. Give them the right set of tools and a world to play in and they’ll be busy indefinitely. We’re also keeping the number of art assets to a minimum by starting with a small number of weapons, armor sets, tools, and structures at game start, with the intent of gradually increasing it over time through our Innovations system. Finally, with regard to world size, our planned game world for ToA is ~200km sq. This is pretty modest by modern MMO standards, but because ToA doesn’t have fast travel (no teleporting or super fast mounts) or a minimap, it’s going to feel significantly larger than its dimensions might suggest.

Thanks again for looking over our Kickstarter and for your words of support. If you’d be interested in speaking to me more about the game, don’t hesitate to shoot us an email at contact@forgedchaos.com.

Best,

Don Danielson aka Brax

Also this is the engine they are talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeroEngine
 

Severian Silk

Guest
Running along walls/ceilings like in AvP would be cool for the spidery race.
 

set

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girly WoW tab targeting

The hero Engine is total garbage, SWTOR and Praise Sithis use it. I mean, I've never used the engine myself, but given that it was likely created to facilitate the creation of WoW-clones, and thus is unlikely to provide a good 'hardcore' experience.

Path of Exile cost well within $2million+ to create, and that's disregarding all the "free" hours the developers put into it at the onset, plus we don't even know how much their 'rich friends' invested. And PoE is a heavily sharded non-MMO.

The most you could do with a kickstarter is promise a very detailed MUD, /maybe/ some kind of Ragnarok Online inspired game. I don't think 3d graphics are a promise you can keep if you're an unknown studio trying to publish an MMO, nevermind a 'hardcore' one.
 

Dr Tomo

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i already have my hands on my dick but before I start I need to know this: girly WoW tab targetting or manly quake-style FPS combat?

Neither since most people are going to hate the fact that you can't have custom U.I's like wow. Sounds a cross between Vindictus/Tera with how combat/aiming works which for me might be a decline as I like auto targeting.

girly WoW tab targeting

The hero Engine is total garbage, SWTOR and Praise Sithis use it. I mean, I've never used the engine myself, but given that it was likely created to facilitate the creation of WoW-clones, and thus is unlikely to provide a good 'hardcore' experience.

Path of Exile cost well within $2million+ to create, and that's disregarding all the "free" hours the developers put into it at the onset, plus we don't even know how much their 'rich friends' invested. And PoE is a heavily sharded non-MMO.

The most you could do with a kickstarter is promise a very detailed MUD, /maybe/ some kind of Ragnarok Online inspired game. I don't think 3d graphics are a promise you can keep if you're an unknown studio trying to publish an MMO, nevermind a 'hardcore' one.

Actually it depends on who uses the Hero engine and how they do it. Those examples you provided are trying to tap into the casual market and if you read some of the features they are going for a more niche market of people who want a sand box game of which only CCP currently taps into and takes for granted. If you read into the KS update's they go into real detail of what they plan to do, I just didn't bother putting it in a post as this is something that most people in the Codex are not into anyway which is understandable. The game they want to make is already more extreme than what Eve currently offers and I think they might want to tone it down a bit.

Also making a comparison with Poe is just terribad as comparing Starcraft 2 with League of Legends. Yea the cash is low but they have posted a response to why they can aim so low and you really didn't bring up a single point that the developer made.



We see now how we've missed our mark here on Kickstarter. We came in thinking way too much of our design and not enough of our effort. We are going to change that. We are going to regroup, rework, and return.

We would like to thank each and every one of you that backed our project. You showed your faith in us and we have every intention of proving your faith was well-placed. To those that decided not to pledge, we understand and appreciate all the feedback we've received. It is our hope that you will give us another look when we return. You won't be disappointed!

In the meantime, please join us on our forums to help us plan our return to Kickstarter!

Until next time!

Forged Chaos

PS: PLEASE, if you were one of the ones that passed us up, we would love to hear why! We want to make our product and KS project better and the only way we can do that is with your input. So PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE email us at contact@forgedchaos.com or private message us here and let us know how we can improve!!!
Anyway I knew 2 days after they started that it would not be successful because of the features. A lot of the stuff they wanted to implement is too hardcore/draconian even for a Eve player and I am not even talking about the perma death. I guess we can hope for Everquest 3 to implement something close to what this studio wanted to do in the future.
 

set

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I think my comparison to PoE is fine, considering there are no indie MMOs to speak of. PoE is the closest thing to a successful indie MMO. POE is a heavily networked ARPG that has gone through a lot of design and growth pains. By the very nature of not being an MMO, which is what the creator Chris explained was their initial goal, they side-stepped a lot of pitfalls actual MMOs run into - like making sure you game isn't a ghost town. I think my comparison is pretty good, considering Chris has a lot to say on MMOs in general:

MMORPGs are not cheap to develop. There are plenty of examples of MMORPGs that have cost upwards of $30m USD, even before marketing costs.

Another significant issue with these projects is the risk. Game projects generally have quite high variance (only a small portion are profitable), but it’s worse with an MMORPG. Because most of the revenue comes from subscriptions (or microtransactions) after release, there are many opportunities for the game to become unpopular and fail. There are also substantial post-release development expenses that are difficult to fund if the game was already over-budget and performing poorly. Once a company doesn't have the funds to release promised content updates on schedule, users leave, and funds dry up further. This death spiral is the reason many MMORPGs ultimately fail.

The revenue models of modern MMORPGs are all over the place. Many of them require a boxed copy purchase, a monthly subscription and also have premium microtransaction content available for purchase. These schemes can be quite confusing (and expensive) for the customer.

ArenaNet’s Guild Wars had great success with just a boxed copy purchase and no monthly fees. Nexon’s MapleStory made a small fortune by supplying the game for free and just selling microtransaction perks. It’s worth noting that neither of these games are traditional Everquest-clone MMORPGs (Guild Wars uses instancing and MapleStory is a 2d side-scrolling online game).

Many players are unable to justify multiple $15/month subscriptions at once, and already have a World of Warcraft subscription that they are not giving up.

Microtransactions are great, but most companies quickly degenerate into selling powerful items that become mandatory for serious players. Most players in a free game aren’t willing to spend money on microtransactions, but are very important to keep around because they provide playmates for the paying players. The sale of mandatory powerful effects (currency, experience potions, weapons) quickly alienates the non-paying players and can cause a major backlash leading to player exodus.

With Path of Exile, we’ve targeted a specific niche group of gamers who enjoy online action RPGs with dark fantasy art styles. We are members of this gaming subset, and by specifically catering to it we will provide a great gaming experience on an affordable budget. Advertising costs are also substantially cheaper because we know exactly who we’re targeting. These factors mitigate a great deal of the risk in our project. We felt that it was much better to have a 75% shot at making a great online action RPG rather than a 5% shot at making a great MMORPG (for 20 times the budget).

In a similar vein, we’re giving Path of Exile away for free. We want as many people to try it as possible so that we can grow a large community of players who enjoy the game - it’s less risky that way. This is also why we’re offering only ethical microtransactions. We fear the risk of player backlash and it’s just not worth selling experience potions to try to make a quick buck. Sure, we’ll make less money per paying customer than our competitors, but we know the community will appreciate it". We intend to maintain Path of Exile for at least ten years, so it’s important that we have a good relationship with our players.

It’s common for developers to outsource portions of their development to various developing countries to take advantage of cheap labour. Communication problems over distances are common with this type of arrangement and can lead to wasted resources or assets of questionable quality. We’re developing Path of Exile in New Zealand, which means that, other than a couple of overseas contractors, most of our developers are English-speaking Westerners who are immersed in Western RPGs. It’s also good that New Zealand wages are among the lowest in first-world countries. Path of Exile’s low budget means that we don’t need to recover $30m via microtransactions like some competing free games do.

from (http://pathofexile.wikia.com/wiki/Why_we_hate_being_called_an_MMORPG which was originally featured on their website until launch)

Harldy 'definitive' but I think he has a good perspective on how indie MMOs need to be manufactured. The people behind Ascension have the right idea by finding things to cut out of the game to bring down costs, but the things they mention... aren't substantial. You need to hire many people - be it coders, to write good algorithims for generating large areas (that still have to be articulated in some way by designers), or artists, to hand-craft every hill and villa - to just get the world in place. Whether people can chat or not... I'd be surprised if the Hero Engine didn't offer such functionality available outright. It seems like something so basic, that it should already exist. I fail to see how 'chatting' could be a costly feature to build.

I can already see a situation - the $1M game is launched. It runs, in classic hero engine style. Even if there aren't latency issues, even if there aren't customer support issues (ie in an ideal world), the company behind this game won't have any money left to push out a three or six month content patch, let alone keep on a staff of QA or support. MMOs are very service-based games, and if your service doesn't start pumping water out of the ship... and you're already over budget... and you're already having to deal with adding more content to the game... and people are already overworked from getting this game into a release state... then we can clearly see why there are so few successful MMOs. They are destined to fail.

The only outlier in all this is EVE. And it's not just because EVE is a sandbox game. I mean, at the end of the day, people continue to play it because yes, it's the only persistent sandbox game on the market, but you forget it took EVE almost a decade now to get where it is. EVE was not immediately successful. EVE only thrives today because they had the endurance to sit there and market, market market. They only had that endurance because 1) they targeted a niche 2) they kept the game cheaper to develop and improve upon (rendering pew pew in spees is much easier than clang clang with a variety of flailing meatbags). CCP didn't hand-populate their universe, they generated it with an algorithim. Way, way cheaper. And a lot less QAing too, you can't 'fall through the floor' in space, you certainly can't get 'stuck' either. There are no exploits to be found by utilizing the void around you. I'm sure there are other shortcuts too, I'm just not aware of.
 

Dr Tomo

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Well after you provided the poe I will admit that the comparison is legit. But disagree that with you view that Eve it wasn't because it's a sand box since they were the first and only ones that didn't mess up on the market. If you played Eve when it first came out there wasn't really much other than the developers giving the customers a bunch of toys to play with in a open ended game. The studio realizes this and is basically taking the same approach that CCP did when they first started and slowly building the game and here the studio has a advantage since CCP already paved the road for them to follow. Also it is wrong to believe that you need many coders as CCP only started with < 30 people and once again built theirs from scratch.

The reason why that Eve cost more was that they developed everything from scratch and all on a persistent server, but I am not blind to feeling a little skeptical that 750k is low but I still have confidence in them. Also the whole concept that Eve markets a lot is crap as this was recent, Eve grew through the word of mouth and the stories that people generate and CCP is taking advantage of that, something called viral marketing. You see it on the codex and reddit /gaming all the time of people submitting stories of "epic" events.

As the points that you make I will counter:
  1. Well this studio is doing the same thing as a chunk of people are getting tired of Eve
  2. The game got cheaper as they slowly refined it and actually just because it is space doesn't mean it is easier as they had significant lag problems especially after the Dominions expansion which crippled null sec by winning battles by stuffing people into one system to lag out the other party. This also doesn't include features they add can break the server and like I said dominion
  3. Can you find evidence that they didn't hand populate the universe? I have been playing for a half decade and they still had the same systems and hasn't changed. Seems to me they did hand populate the universe just like this studio will and giving the tools for players to have fun
  4. No the studio hasn't taken shortcuts as Eve is sophisticated enough that there are more costs once it matures then when it is young.
I would argue that sand box mmorpgs are cheaper to build initially as the studio even explains this that the reason why most mmo's are expensive is because they are theme parks. You have to create content for the user since they are incapable of creating the content themselves and this is common when a lot of people that player theme parks games join Eve and roughly 2 weeks later quit.
 

set

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EVE rewards veteran players by making them better at the game and further rooting them in the game with their core skill systems. Nobody is going to jump ship from EVE to play some brand new indie MMO that was thrown together on a shoestring budget just because they were tired of EVE. Plenty of people get tired of WoW, yet they come back in droves after that 'new competitor mmo' launches. They just find themselves saying, "Wow, WoW was more fun than this." If this game's goal is to compete with EVE it will fail, because any successful MMO can't go head to head with a main competitor. EVE has more cotent, history, gameplay, exploration, etc. just based on the fact it is the incumbent game. If this game is to succeed it needs to carve its own niche, not go head to head with EVE. People who jump from EVE to some other hardcore sandbox excel simulator will be very keen to leave after the first month, just because they are so invested in that other game and will draw direct comparisons with its weaker competitor.

We're not talking about EVE's entire history, just the launch. EVE's design made its launch easier than ToA's will be. ToA is closer to a 'traditional' MMO, you're playing a character avatar, not a spaceship avatar. There's a big cost difference. I'm just talking about developing this MMO and keeping it running for the first six months, forget yeras from now, which is how long it took for EVE to reach 400k+ users. EVE also didn't just spread by word of mouth, EVE has always had an AGGRESSIVE ad campaign on websites, with an aggressive free trial campaign, with an aggressive 'recommend your friends for free subs' plan.

There is no way they hand-populated the universe. Why would they do that? They wrote algorithims to generate a single star system. They may tweak star systems manually if balance is an issue, but I see no reason why they would pour millions of man hours into smoething people will never notice. Yes, they developed planet models and star models, but how hard is it to skin and model and animate a rotating sphere?

EVE grew in sophistication as it aged. They didn't introduce a lot of their critical lag-managing code until something like 2009. I don't know a lot about EVE's early early days, but I suspect circumstances would be different if they were launching tomorrow. If you are a new MMO you can expect to get a surge of population in the first month. If you don't rent X servers in month 1, then people will leave because it's laggy. If you buy too many, people will leave because it's a ghost town (and your retetion rate is never 100% anyway). This up-and-down population swing takes a while to stabilize, especially if your game is initially very popular. I don't know how hard it is to manage something like this, but it's this growing pain that causes many MMOs to falter quickly - they lose lots of money on servers for the first month, then have no retention.

Sandbox MMOs are not inherently cheaper to build, both sandbox and themepark require the creation of enemies, players, items, sprites, particle effect, skills, maps, and AI. The only thing a 'pure sandbox mmo' cuts out is quests, quest dialogue and quest design (though EVE didn't actually cut any of this out either). The cut-out quest deisgn stuff is replaced though, with a burden to provide systems that allow players to make the sandbox fun - functions and features that allow players to claim and manage territory, for instance.

All of the things I listed must be QA'd and built rigorlously for high server performance. Not cheap. Not easy. Whether you go sandbox or not you've got so much to do.

The first thing you should consider cutting as an indie MMO developer is the 3rd dimension. What does the 3rd dimension bring to your game?

-Vapid people (unfortunately that means lots of people) who unconsciously care your game is using text or sprites to convey content
-The ability to have a sense of scale and height (this may be important if you want a sense of adventure/peril I suppose), though this can be avoided by using an isometric perspective or a side-scrolling perspective
-Lots and lots of costs in terms of production, server code, and rendering

The second thing you should consider cutting as an indie MMO developer is art assets. Can you afford to have one unique piece of art per item? Can you afford to have one unique model per enemy, race, or player race? Can you afford to have an ogre race? Only humans? etc.

*People like to be able customize their characters in MMOs
*People like to be able to play as non-human races in MMOs (though, to be fair, many vapid players will love to stick with humanoid ones and depending upon your audience it may not make sense to offer non-human playable characters)
*People dislike repeating art assets in general

The final thing you should consider cutting as an indie MMO are features. Stuff like territory control, or heavily scripted quests.

*The problem with cutting this stuff is this is what separates your MMO from any other. If you cut out core features that keep your players playing... you're not going anywhere. I'd say though, you need to really focus on what your MMO should offer. If it's going to be territory control, you should really put effort into making this mechanic as fleshed out as possible, instead of going shallow with it and trying to offer a feature list to rival your average AAA MMO. This means, cut out those scripted quests, cut out those crazy item scripts, cut out branching dialogue with NPCs, cut out advanced monster AI... et cetera, focus on delivering an experience which is focused on a core feature and make sure that feature is deep. For instance, PoE focused on items and put a lot of their effort into making items look, feel, and behave as deeply as they thought they could.

Of course. I'm not an MMO developer, so I could be wrong about all this, but I've played enough of... well, the older ones, to know what it takes to make a successful one. And although I like a lot of the features proposed by ToA (I think permadeath even has its place, when designed right), I think it's a mess of a proposal that lacks a core focus and looks like it's destined for failure. This is why not many people backed it, well, and maybe the fact there hasn't been a successful indie MMO yet, let alone a successful kickstarter game of any large magnitude (Shadowrun Returns and FTL were 'okay' but not the caliber of good I wanted personally).
 
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Dr Tomo

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I am going to make this the last post as the topic is pretty much done until the studio decides to do something else.
Of course. I'm not an MMO developer, so I could be wrong about all this, but I've played enough of... well, the older ones, to know what it takes to make a successful one.

So it makes this entire argument moot doesn't it? So because I played just about the majority of the mobas out there with the exception of dota I am an expert myself and knows what makes a successful moba.:lol: That is a laugh. I only done testing for games and I still don't try to lecture on the costs, I just know theme parks are man hours heavy as I have helped on a few of them in their early alpha phase. Most of the Funcom mmo's are perfect shining examples.


[quote="set, post: 2956654, member: 17414" And although I like a lot of the features proposed by ToA (I think permadeath even has its place, when designed right), I think it's a mess of a proposal that lacks a core focus and looks like it's destined for failure. This is why not many people backed it, well, and maybe the fact there hasn't been a successful indie MMO yet, let alone a successful kickstarter game of any large magnitude (Shadowrun Returns and FTL were 'okay' but not the caliber of good I wanted personally).[/quote]

At this point I honestly think you are just ranting as your first point is moot since they do have core focus, but it does take time to read through the updates and features list. There are already a couple indie mmo's that are doing fine, successful depends on your definition and there are already a couple that are sand boxes. As successful KS game of any large magnitude proves that you have no idea what you are talking about as I can list off close to half a dozen: Project Eternity, Wasteland 2, Double Fines 2 titles (one is the chalice), Torment tides of Numeria, and Star Citizen (the biggest with over $26 million raised not all on KS) all of which are pretty big for single player games of which publishers thought there was no demand for. Exception of Star Citizen. Also it has been stated that most KS's fail and only 25% actually succeed.

As for why not many people backed it I really don't know. It could be because the studio didn't advertise enough or people don't like some of the features they talked about. Or possibly they don't have a semi working product which is likely since I have heard a lot of people complain that they only seen tech demos. Regardless the project is so far in hibernation and I will update this thread if they try again or work something out and if it releases and turns out to be garbage.

Anyway I will give you the last post or you can message me.
 

set

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I think it's unreasonable to disregard my opinion because I have never managed an MMO before. If you think I'm ranting, great. I mean, I'm writing my opinion here on a web forum. I can just as easily say you're full of bullshit as well and that you're disregarding what I have to say because you simply don't like it. It doesn't get us anywhere to treat each other that way. What's wrong with my points that makes you think my reasoning is unreasonable? That I can't find a core drive for this MMO to even exist? If I can't understand it from the front page of the kickstarter, then that is probably the main reason why it got no funding. I shouldn't be expected to read pages upon pages of developers ammending and clarifying themselves. You should be crystal clear in that <8 minute kickstarter pitch video, otherwise... I mean, if you can't even get that down what are you doing calling yourself a developer? Be professional.

If there have been successful commercial indepdent MMOs (coming from start-up companies/developers, which is what the name implies, I mean sure, anybody can be an indie mmo developer if we include MUDs or 'mmos' like LOL) I'd love to hear their names, because making Wasteland 2 is totally different from making Stripped-Down Hardcore Online with the Hero Engine.
 

Data4

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This game will fail for one reason and one reason only: Target market.

History has shown that if you make a game with full loot and no relatively safe areas, Lord of the Flies happens. Add permadeath, and another motivating factor for would-be goon squads is added in. If it gets to release, there might be a period of wonder, where people will get into the game and check it out. After a month or so, it'll devolve. It happened to all the others. It happened to DayZ. It'll happen in this one.
 

Dr Tomo

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This game will fail for one reason and one reason only: Target market.

History has shown that if you make a game with full loot and no relatively safe areas, Lord of the Flies happens. Add permadeath, and another motivating factor for would-be goon squads is added in. If it gets to release, there might be a period of wonder, where people will get into the game and check it out. After a month or so, it'll devolve. It happened to all the others. It happened to DayZ. It'll happen in this one.

But the games continue to chug along like MO, DF, Perpetum, Eve, and etc. You have to compare apples with apples and those games were or are doing good, depends on the competency of the studio.
 

DefJam101

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EVE rewards veteran players by making them better at the game and further rooting them in the game with their core skill systems. Nobody is going to jump ship from EVE to play some brand new indie MMO that was thrown together on a shoestring budget just because they were tired of EVE. Plenty of people get tired of WoW, yet they come back in droves after that 'new competitor mmo' launches. They just find themselves saying, "Wow, WoW was more fun than this." If this game's goal is to compete with EVE it will fail, because any successful MMO can't go head to head with a main competitor. EVE has more cotent, history, gameplay, exploration, etc. just based on the fact it is the incumbent game. If this game is to succeed it needs to carve its own niche, not go head to head with EVE. People who jump from EVE to some other hardcore sandbox excel simulator will be very keen to leave after the first month, just because they are so invested in that other game and will draw direct comparisons with its weaker competitor.
As an EVE player of about five years I can pretty safely say that it's actually the exact opposite of this. Almost every veteran EVE player I know, and know of, dislikes EVE. They only play it because there's nothing else like it on the market.

If there was a viable alternative, EVE players would migrate en masse. But there isn't, and there hasn't been one for almost ten years.

History has shown that if you make a game with full loot and no relatively safe areas, Lord of the Flies happens. Add permadeath, and another motivating factor for would-be goon squads is added in. If it gets to release, there might be a period of wonder, where people will get into the game and check it out. After a month or so, it'll devolve. It happened to all the others. It happened to DayZ. It'll happen in this one.
The solution is to ensure that new players entering the game can learn how to play this sort of game properly, rather than ragequitting in dumb frustration. I do not necessarily mean safe areas. I mean community groups and tutorials and guides and things in place such that people unaccustomed to PvP MMOs learn how to not suck instead of blaming their failure on BAD GAME DESIGN!1!1 If that means some kind hybrid PvEvP system (like in The Repopulation) or a pseudosafe area for beginners (as in EVE) then so be it.
 

set

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You play a game you dislike? I know most people who play EVE are tsundere about it, but come on, if you really hated it, you woudln't play it.

And there are other things like it - they're just not pay-to-play. There are several MUDs that perfectly emulate the open kind of experience EVE provides. One JUST launched this month called Wayfar 1444. To put it in oversimplistic terms, it's EVE if it were Dwarf Fortress.
 

Dr Tomo

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EVE rewards veteran players by making them better at the game and further rooting them in the game with their core skill systems. Nobody is going to jump ship from EVE to play some brand new indie MMO that was thrown together on a shoestring budget just because they were tired of EVE. Plenty of people get tired of WoW, yet they come back in droves after that 'new competitor mmo' launches. They just find themselves saying, "Wow, WoW was more fun than this." If this game's goal is to compete with EVE it will fail, because any successful MMO can't go head to head with a main competitor. EVE has more cotent, history, gameplay, exploration, etc. just based on the fact it is the incumbent game. If this game is to succeed it needs to carve its own niche, not go head to head with EVE. People who jump from EVE to some other hardcore sandbox excel simulator will be very keen to leave after the first month, just because they are so invested in that other game and will draw direct comparisons with its weaker competitor.
As an EVE player of about five years I can pretty safely say that it's actually the exact opposite of this. Almost every veteran EVE player I know, and know of, dislikes EVE. They only play it because there's nothing else like it on the market.

If there was a viable alternative, EVE players would migrate en masse. But there isn't, and there hasn't been one for almost ten years.

It is reassuring that I am not a random case when it comes to playing the game because there is no better alternative. Also, it is either this game or theme park games and in particular f2p theme park games. Be a cold day in hell before I sub to another theme park game let alone play a f2p. Honesty think that once you gotten into eve and enjoy the freedom you get, makes it difficult to play another mmo where you are restricted to rules and boundaries.

History has shown that if you make a game with full loot and no relatively safe areas, Lord of the Flies happens. Add permadeath, and another motivating factor for would-be goon squads is added in. If it gets to release, there might be a period of wonder, where people will get into the game and check it out. After a month or so, it'll devolve. It happened to all the others. It happened to DayZ. It'll happen in this one.
The solution is to ensure that new players entering the game can learn how to play this sort of game properly, rather than ragequitting in dumb frustration. I do not necessarily mean safe areas. I mean community groups and tutorials and guides and things in place such that people unaccustomed to PvP MMOs learn how to not suck instead of blaming their failure on BAD GAME DESIGN!1!1 If that means some kind hybrid PvEvP system (like in The Repopulation) or a pseudosafe area for beginners (as in EVE) then so be it.

But here this mmo is already incorporating a way to create an incentive for protecting basically null sec space. Eve you can only tax corporations a certain percentage by the alliance. Here it is not only every individual (both the guild members but also people who would like to start in your town) but also the business and the plots of land they own. This actually goes farther in my opinion then Eve by creating something similar to Star Wars Galaxies with building a city.

Based off a lot of the features they are planning you can see where they picked things up from other mmo's that would work well in a sand box and added more of their own. The only down side is just like the current stagnation in null we will see blobbing occurring more in Toa just like Eve. But it will prevent stagnation that keeps groups like Pandemic from being overly threatening.
 
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