Camelot Unchained - Mounting DAoC's corpse or legitimate project?

[Terpsichore]

The hell is with that awful faction naming, vikings? Come on. They should have just copied what DAoC had.

 

[Night Goat]

Point being, what you see here are dynamical 3D objects with physics and mass, buildable by players in 100% free form (i.e. virtually brick by brick, that is voxel by voxel), destructable, upgradeable, customizable...

So you're saying every square inch of the game world will be covered in giant stone dicks?

 

[JamesGoblin]

Makes sense, however I hope there will be some sort of pre-existing things (aside from the mega dungeon thingy), cities, villages that sort of nonsense. With buildings made by hand that won't look like they were thrown together in a Blender on a coffee break.

Yeah, say - ruins of Camelot will be placed somewhere in the middle of the continent, there will be realistic buildings ( i.e. standard = made by artists and non-minecrafty) in each of the three starting/PvE zones, in style of each faction and so on.

Fans are very much interested in game looking like a true medieval fantasy (and not penis building minecraftasy); it's impossible to keep it 100% clean and yet allow creativity and free form, but there is a lot that can be done. I believe that it will be similar to what we have in reality: People will be building Palaces of Versailles and Taj Mahals deep behind the frontlines, and on the battleground we'll likely have lots of expendable and ugly quick ones, same as trenches and bunkers in so called real life.

So you're saying every square inch of the game world will be covered in giant stone dicks?

Building will require lots of time, resources and likely even large scale teamplay in some cases (and most of the map will be battleground, with buildings being destructible); Anyway, they plan to have a robust system for pending (waiting for allowance) in some cases and reporting players. So not exactly every inch will be covered...

 

[Jazz_]

no pve and no quests?

 

[Mangoose]

no pve and no quests?

I guess depends how they implement it. In DAoC you could just jump into the uhh tiered battlegrounds from the beginning (or maybe level 10?). You already had keeps with destructible buildings at the first tiers - felt like high level PVP content if there was enough population (no, it was no Warsong Gulch). Or you can level via grinding. I don't terribly remember any quests except the starting village.

Building shit seems like a waste of time and energy and money though, that could be spent on RvR and the unique rune mechanics or whatever I don't really remember because I haven't looked at the game in a year. But back to working on minecraft-y buildings, that just sounds like the game development will be split too thin. Just like GW2, which for example emphasized RvR and Public Quests so much when advertised... yet instead they spent huge amounts of time on the solo campaign storyline shit (which was even shittier because I was a Mesmer and Mesmers are so fucking boring in PVE. .). I mean, I don't even remember PVE storyline thing ever being mentioned. It's like they completely flip-flopped. I found RvR and the public quests boring, though at least they made arenas okay. I think I heard Anet lost/replaced some people though, someone here would know better than I (Average Manatee ?).

Actually PVE quests would also be a waste of time. Unless they made WAR-like Public Quests.

Anyways, any update on game mechanics, besides what has been mentioned?

*Okay, I hate that the Mesmer was turned into a clone class anyway. It still significantly unique in some parts, such as the portals and such, but besides that it was basically clones/phantoms for that you used for DPS or for conditions. Pissed off there was no interruption. And I don't even want to talk about the cooldown system. Game just felt bland. I dunno if HoT made it better, if the Revenant is fun to play.

Also I apparently hit level cap with my Mesmer and I do NOT remember hitting level cap lol. Did someone hack my account or was I really fucking high?

 

[Mangoose]

Goddamnit all I see is new textured weapons and weapon models and shit on building buildings. What the flying fuck. Camelot Unchained is supposed to be DAoC 2.

That being said, at least they're honest about the specific things they're doing unlike the bait-and-switch GW2 did. I seriously didn't imagine personal storylines in GW2. And I don't even remembering seeing them advertised. Especially since I was super-hyped and watched a lot of trailers and gameplay before hand.

Edit: Also, at least Camelot will have 3 factions. Which again is very very very important in RvR because an odd number causes the "strongest" faction may have to face two factions, which is a way of keeping (wavery) balance.

Man if DAoC had a graphics update I'd play it 24/7. Or maybe if I was patient enough. Or I found the right class (Skald was pretty awesome in groups though. Thanes were of course easy and fun but too easy.

Sadly, the best RvR classes are in WAR because most have unique and useful mechanics. Leaping forward towards the back line of a scenario as a front-line DPSer like the White Lion. The Black Orc combo system. The Archmage switching between healing and damage. Fucking turrets. Collision detection which lets ~3 Iron Breakers guard a rammed door with their shield buffs on, the Disciple/WarPriest(?) melee/heal system. Sadly, 2 faction RvR, the Alterac Valley rush of PQs during T4 RvR instead of actually fighting, made the game just not interesting. This is to the point where I downloaded WAR for the private server but I couldn't generate the motivation to log in.

Sad!

 

[Mangoose]

So in terms of the OP:

Game's definitely legitimate. The question is what the game will become. All the news I've just read and read months ago is just fucking models and textures of weapons. And I didn't even know about buildings until now. DAoC has "buildings" but it was just like a tiny house.

Edit: Mind you, I played DAoC VERY VERY late so I never got that far and the population was dwindling

Maybe I can use sweetfx/reshade and make it look prettier.

Edit: Best thing about SweetFX is that their postprocessing SMAA is soooo much better and has better performance than any multisampling in game (though you could mix them). And then it can sharpen things well so that textures look less... old. There's HDR but my usage is mostly for contrast.

 

[you know what time it is]

Any news?

 

[Infinitron]

Any news?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...lot-unchained-wont-sell-spaceships-or-castles

Why the people behind crowdfunded Camelot Unchained won't sell spaceships or castles
"We are getting close to a tipping point…"

When Camelot Unchained ran out of crowdfunding money, Mark Jacobs did something unusual by today's standards: he put his hand in his own pocket and paid for development himself. Camelot Unchained didn't begin offering houses or castles or spaceships (let's call them horses) for real money, didn't become an intoxicating shopping mall for pledging support. Being delayed was developer City State Entertainment's fault so why should the community foot the bill?

"It hurt," Mark Jacobs told me on the phone. He had already added $2 million of his own to the game's $2.2m Kickstarter tally to get the game made, but that was back in 2013, when Jacobs was talking optimistically about a 2015 Camelot Unchained release. He didn't realise programmers would be like gold dust and near impossible to find; he didn't realise the game's ability system would fail and need rebuilding; and he couldn't predict his wife would battle with breast cancer. $4.5m only took a team of 30 people so far. Something had to be done.

"It hurt my bank account a lot because I wasn't a billionaire or super-rich by any standard," he said. "But look, I made a deal, and I told backers I would do it. It's our fault. It was on us as a development team to deliver the game; we did not. The bottom line is we did not meet what our projections were. I made a choice and it wasn't an easy one: do I honour our commitment to those same people who gave us this chance by not treating them as walking wallets, or not?

"I understand why these other games do it but that was not for me. That's not how I wanted to live my life and run this studio. There were some very strong arguments to be made that if people are willing to spend the money, you should try to get it from them. I don't buy that. I don't. I want to treat gamers the way I want to be treated. There's a better way to do things."

Spells and animations and environments are not finished, but look how many people are fighting.

Jacobs' way was to - in a deal only announced yesterday - secure $7.5m to finish Camelot Unchained. "That amount... Even if we didn't get a single other penny from crowdfunded donations, we'd be fine to get this game out," he said. Incidentally, Jacobs has known the investors for decades and nothing operationally will change.

Now, the plan is to do a Camelot Unchained beta this year, with battleground brawls - Saturday night sieges as they're known - from the spring. "We are also shooting for a release in 2019 if - and it's a giant if - we can hire enough programmers," he said. "If we can, I am very confident we can deliver this game in '19. It may be late in '19 but I think we can deliver it."

As it stands, Camelot Unchained looks a long way off. What videos there are resemble technical demonstrations of lots of characters running around in one big field; there's no discernible game, with a shape and direction, on display. But what we're seeing is very important.

The core promise of Camelot Unchained was always to have hundreds - if not thousands - of people fighting in huge three-way wars, with no server crashes and slideshow game performance. The videos show Camelot Unchained partially achieving that. They show players and bots - simulated remote clients - in their hundreds, even thousands, engaging in basic combat with simple spell effects. I remember Dark Age of Camelot falling apart with 300 people fighting - Camelot Unchained once topped 3000.

"Do I think an 800-person battle is doable? Yes, no question about it. Do I think a 1000-person battle is doable? Yes, no question about it. Do I think a 2000-person battle is doable? We've had 2000 bots running around with players and, just as you see in the video [unedited footage from Dragon Con 2017], you can do it.

"No one's been able to do the same thing with either players or bots," he added. "No MMO, none. Not Dark Age of Camelot, not even The Elder Scrolls Online. We have shown our backers that we can do both."

But where is everything else? Camelot Unchained had some big and bold ideas about reinventing typical MMO mechanics. There was the idea for a stealth mechanic based around exploiting another plane (a bit like the Fade in Dragon Age); a magic system where players could combine powers to make, for instance, even bigger ice walls, and then melt the ice walls with fire to create steam, and blow the steam with wind to create a cloud of cover. There was siege gameplay based on a micro-Minecraft block building system, where towers could be brought down by targeting load-bearing sections. None of that can be seen in the videos (although the block-based building has been up and running in the separate Camelot Unchained Building Environment - CUBE - application for a while).

Even with the time-consumingly reworked ability system up and running - where you can make your own abilities from skill components - and the engine on track, it still leaves a heck of a lot of work for a 30-40 person team to do. "In terms of how much of a game there is, in terms of game-game, in terms of progression, in terms of finished areas: not a lot," Jacobs said. "We haven't even started on it." It hardly instils rock-solid confidence in a possible launch next year, does it?

Remember, though, there's a lot Camelot Unchained doesn't have to do. With no levelling, no one-to-whatever level grind, there's no need for all the quests and hubs and monsters and equipment which go with it. In this way Camelot Unchained relieves itself of a huge development timesink, allowing the team to focus on the core systems and tools players need to make content for each other instead, be it through combat or crafting or whatever.

Whether the ambitious gameplay systems will work as Jacobs imagines, I don't know, but he's not wedded to them so much as the requirement they be "fun", which I like. I also like how he's doing business, and the refreshingly simple and poignantly moral message it sends. Camelot Unchained does not have an Imperial Palace for sale for nearly £6000 like Crowfall does, staggeringly; it doesn't have a whole real-money real-estate business like Shroud of the Avatar did before it could proverbially walk; and it doesn't sell the fantasy equivalent of spaceships for hundreds of pounds like Star Citizen so controversially does.

These games still haven't launched; they are cashing in on to-be-fulfilled promises. But things are coming to a head, fulfilment is due, and if these games fail to deliver - the biggest of the crowdfundees, the torch bearers - the whole business model could disappear for games like them.

It's a long way from finished but I like where the look is headed.

"We have a duty as a crowdfunded game to deliver on what we said we're going to deliver on, to do the best job we can, spend the money wisely, and treat our patrons and their money in the same way we would treat our own: with respect," said Jacobs. "And if that doesn't happen - and it doesn't matter if you're a small game or a big game - there's going to be a reckoning.

"If enough Kickstarter games fail then the reckoning can be very bad. It can be bad from a legal standpoint, it can be bad from a customer relations standpoint. We are getting close to a tipping point with a number of games, including ours, where if we don't start showing we can deliver the goods then there's going to be even less faith in crowdfunding and Kickstarters then there is now.

"And if any of the really big ones just totally fall on their face and not deliver - not a game that is great but just fail to deliver, and can't explain where all that money went - both and civil and criminal penalties could be involved, and I say this as an ex-lawyer.

"I don't want to see Kickstarter and crowdfunding go away because it's the single best change in the publisher-developer relationship I've seen in a long time. And when you combine that with Steam and other digital distribution services, which have destroyed the businesses of the brick-and-mortar, it couldn't be a better time for developers. It's fabulous. We just can't muck it up."

In other words, 2018 and 2019 will be crucially important years.

 

[thesheeep]

But.... who cleaned the entire landmass and put wax on it?

 

[Cudgel]

Oh no.....my hopes....

 

[GhostCow]

I started thinking about this game and wondering how anyone can be excited for an MMO that has 0 PvE and just straight RvR and after reading this thread I still don't get it. Also surprised no one has posted in here for two years. I guess this game really is going to be as garbage as I'm expecting.

 

[LizardWizard]

Except the 'game' is just a Mark Jacobs Ponzi scheme

 

[Fishy]

And since CU is progressing so fast...

https://massivelyop.com/2020/01/31/...bs-just-announced-a-new-game-called-colossus/

Oh, don't miss the comments section, pure gold. Angry fans and Mark Jacobs himself firefighting in there.

 

[ADL]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, DAoC's three faction PvP is too simple to warrant it's own standalone game in today's market, especially on a subscription model. It's partially the PvP portion of Guild Wars 2 and it's partially the PvP portion of Elder Scrolls Online, which both have large amounts of PvE content including thousands of hours worth of questing, dungeons and raids.

Mark Jacobs seems to be a decent, well-meaning guy but the market has moved past him for better or worse.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Mark Jacobs seems to be a decent, well-meaning guy but the market has moved past him for better or worse.

EXTRA so when he moves past CU and goes right for the Next Thing.

Say what you will about Death Shroud of the Avatard, but at least there was a playable game to be had at some point. I have a feeling there will be a 10th anniversary party of dryhumping DAoC's corpse and we'll hear the same Tinkerbell-Clapping then as Not Camelot Unchained is getting now. Just gonna take a bit more money and time, just take your tiiiiime and do it riiiiight!

"Jacobs' way was to - in a deal only announced yesterday - secure $7.5m to finish Camelot Unchained."

2 years ago and we see this much now of Colossal Fuck You. Totally not connected, y'all. Because uh... his dog got run over or something.

Best part was the end of the article from 2018:

"We have a duty as a crowdfunded game to deliver on what we said we're going to deliver on, to do the best job we can, spend the money wisely, and treat our patrons and their money in the same way we would treat our own: with respect," said Jacobs. "And if that doesn't happen - and it doesn't matter if you're a small game or a big game - there's going to be a reckoning.

"If enough Kickstarter games fail then the reckoning can be very bad. It can be bad from a legal standpoint, it can be bad from a customer relations standpoint. We are getting close to a tipping point with a number of games, including ours, where if we don't start showing we can deliver the goods then there's going to be even less faith in crowdfunding and Kickstarters then there is now.

"And if any of the really big ones just totally fall on their face and not deliver - not a game that is great but just fail to deliver, and can't explain where all that money went - both and civil and criminal penalties could be involved, and I say this as an ex-lawyer.

"I don't want to see Kickstarter and crowdfunding go away because it's the single best change in the publisher-developer relationship I've seen in a long time. And when you combine that with Steam and other digital distribution services, which have destroyed the businesses of the brick-and-mortar, it couldn't be a better time for developers. It's fabulous. We just can't muck it up."

He's definitely missed where that hit to crowdfunding willingness has already happened several times over. Most people just make excuses that blame themselves for paying a stupid tax and move on, but yes, there are both civil and criminal penalties for those who decide to be a little shifty with the money. I hope that's now the case he- oh... shit... Well, this just became a lot more entertaining.

 

[LizardWizard]

Crowfall should take notes. This is why you never actually release and continue to snake oil funds until your corpse is dead in the ground and nobody can touch you.

 

[ADL]

https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...e-Than-15-Million-in-Latest-Round-of-Funding/

FAIRFAX, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--City State Entertainment, LLC, (“City State” or the “Company”) developer of the Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game Camelot Unchained, Final Stand: Ragnarök and the Unchained Engine announced today that it has secured more than $15 million in new capital from an array of minority investors. This funding round consists of a combination of new and original investors, including several from Mark Jacobs' last video game studio, Mythic Entertainment, Inc., which was sold to Electronic Arts in 2006.

As this is the largest funding round that the studio has received to date, I am extremely grateful to our investors, and long-term Backers of Camelot Unchained who share our vision for both our games and the cutting-edge engine that we have created," said Mark Jacobs, CEO of City State Entertainment. “We have already reaped some of the benefits from this funding round as we continue to take our development and leadership team to another level. With the uncertain and troubling economic times in the world, knowing that we can continue to work on our games while adding the people and talent we need to deliver on our current games is quite comforting.”

"This additional funding will allow us to continue to develop our engine, an engine that already delivers a variety of experiences not seen anywhere else in the industry from massive real-time online interactions in procedural player-built worlds to hand crafted multiplayer battles where heroes can engage armies of thousands of enemies at a time,” said George Davison, Chief Technical Officer and founder of the Seattle studio. “I am looking forward to growing our team to polish and expand our cutting edge technology stack.”

Mr. Jacobs added, “I expect that in the coming weeks, based on the number of people already in the hiring pipeline, we will accelerate our business activities. City State has continued to stay the course on focusing on massively scalable games and the technology it takes to build them and that will not change on my watch.”

 

[GhostCow]

Why the fuck would anyone give this asshat more money? He's never going to produce anything of value. Looking back, even DAOC wasn't that good. It was full of retarded decisions.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

It is sad that there aren't any good faction war MMOs today.

• DAOC is too antiquated.
• WAR was unfinished.
• EVE's gameplay is incredibly boring and is dying anyway. Also, it's sci fi.
• WoW has no territories to capture. Classic and BFA briefly revived open world PvP, but the game isn't centered around it and it died out quickly.
• Space Cowboy Online/ACE Online/Air Rivals was amazing, but then ruined by the implementation of a literal ingame P2W slot machine which gave you the best equipment in the game.
  ESO has insane build disparity where one guy can solo 10 other players. Game looks like plastic.
• GW2's WvW as a game mode has been neglected for 7 years. No investment in your faction or flavor, it's just blue vs red vs green team. WvW is no longer the multifaceted game mode it once was, it's now just zergs burning each other down in 5-10 seconds. Awful server matching system.

The three PvP kickstarter MMOs - Star Citizen, Crowfall, and CU - are in development hell and will never release a fun, polished game.

I think Gloria Victis might have some open world PvP but that game didn't seem very polished to me.

 

[GhostCow]

Crowfall isn't in development hell. It actually came out about a year ago and it sucked so now it's either shut down recently or is about to.

 

[Scarcity]

Albion Online

 

[Sjukob]

It is sad that there aren't any good faction war MMOs today.

There's also Planetside 2.

 

[LizardWizard]

Why the fuck would anyone give this asshat more money? He's never going to produce anything of value. Looking back, even DAOC wasn't that good. It was full of retarded decisions.

Post this in 2012 you fucking pussy

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

It is sad that there aren't any good faction war MMOs today.

There's also Planetside 2.

Seconding Planetside 2. It still has it's problems but there seem to be active attempts by the devs to fix major issues like Cosmetics fucking with the silhouette of enemies so you didn't know whether to fire on them. Performance was a lot better than I remember too but that might be because I have a decent graphics card and not the soviet era Commodore 64 rip offs you slavs use. And they're adding new content frequently. I still would prefer a proper Planetside 3 made with new tech and the space battles they hinted at.