Camelot Unchained MMO

Lasch_sl said:

If you want to afk... log out?

Your camouflage/quasi invisibility is fun, because it means you get to engage in combat only when you have the advantage. End of story.

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I love dumb responses. You my friend are an idiot.

BankBank_sl said:

does this meancamelotunchainedhas over $5.2 mio in funding?

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Actually from my best knowledge, CU is going to receive another 3mil from a single contributor.

Utnayan_sl said:

Unless they actually know what they are doing.

Costs are skyrocketing because of complete waste in the development process and countless stop starts. The game industry is as bad with their own and crowd funded cash as the US Government is with our tax dollars.

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Mostly, if I had to make a list of the best few ways to keep costs down this would be there.

1. Have a solid idea what you are going to make, and then stick to it.
Changing things on paper is cheap, so 3 people spending a couple weeks (Designer/Coder/Artist) figuring out what you are going to make can save you tens of millions. You don't have to be married to the details, but you should write them down and plan for them. Pad all time estimates by 100%.

2. Substitute time for money.
A small, good team working longer will get the same amount of work done formuchless money than a big team trying to finish sooner. Team sizes don't scale well on games, especially early on. The classic mistake made on bigger projects is the opposite, publishers are impatient they want that ROI as soon as possible because their bonuses depend on it. If you tell them a project will take 25 people and 2 years then they think 50 people will take 1 year. At that point they tell you to hire 100 people and give you a 6 month deadline, and make it an offer you can't refuse.

3. Pre-production for as long as necessary.
This goes along with number 2, but use your pre-production. Things are cheap here, experimentnowbecause experimenting later will cost you millions.

4. Use Contractors.
Seriously, this can save you a lot of money, time, and effort. Work can come in bursts, sometimes you do need things quickly, usually assets like art or sound. Rather than hire like crazy and then have all these expensive people idling, it is ok to farm it out. If things don't come out well you can fix them.

5. Well Organized Data
Setting up your data correctly can drastically reduce the time it takes to make and bug fix content. Not just what we traditionally call content either, classes and abilities are content too

I could probably think of more, but those are the big ones.

BankBank_sl said:

does this meancamelotunchainedhas over $5.2 mio in funding?

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That is correct.

Utnayan_sl said:

Unless they actually know what they are doing.

Costs are skyrocketing because of complete waste in the development process and countless stop starts. The game industry is as bad with their own and crowd funded cash as the US Government is with our tax dollars.

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While that is true, there are also other reasons games cost much more now. Games are much more complex than they were 10 years ago and that trend is continuing. Art assets take a ton more work than the old simple polygon models and 2d sprites of the past. The power on our desktops can do amazing things now, but to take full advantage of it requires some serious man hours in art and programming.

A simple example of just the art side of things is the quadrupling of pixels when you double the size of an image. It takes a lot more work to make a high rez image look good. The same issues happen with higher poygon models, larger databases and massive amounts of code. Players are more sophisticated in their demands now, so reverting back to DAoC's level of tech is not an option for CU. Otherwise players would just go back to the old game.

For CU to succeed they will have to use modern graphics and other recent tech. They can simplify some of that, and they will have to if they want to achieve the massive battles they have set as a goal. But if the art and tech are too simple then most players will look elsewhere for their entertainment.

It is a bit of both. Games cost more for all the reasons you mentioned, which makes the stop/starts that much more expensive when they happen. Good up front planning and design is more important now than ever, the more costs rise the more money it saves.

RobXIII_sl said:

Ahh DAOC stealthers. The early days of invisible archers one shotting cloth casters. Totally balanced.

When I was bored I would run around Midgard solo as a 50 cab shortly after release (yea yea, I know lol). ZIK---> dead. Not to mention if the first one didnt get you, your little caster arms would flail and get interrupted just by them targetting you, unless your 10 minute 'quickcast' was not on cooldown. Don't even get me started on the melee stealthers one shotting AND NOT EVEN BREAKING STEALTH.

Yes this was slightly fixed months later, but I was so pissed at the skilless stealther kids that my last week of DAOC, I 2-boxed my buddies infiltrator, had it running while monitored by Excalibur (infiltrators could 'see' all stealthers, so it showed up on radar) and got my revenge.

That said, after decades of abuse as a non stealther in WoW, Warhammer, Aion, SWTOR, and any other MMO with pvp that loves having stealth+stun+burst, I realize that I'm far too old for this shiat, and will not buy any MMO that has perma-stealth+PVP.

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One shotting sitting casters in a keep...so much joy...

What was even more joy after you one-shot the caster is you make it up the ladder and over the top of the keep and still live. It was quit astonishing how many times I made it out alive. People are so fucking dumb and too busy worrying about farming the people manning the ram for RP's.

Sadly Mythic didn't allow that for long.

This is completely incorrect. DAoC Archer/Assassin classes could only one shot at the start of DAoC and they could only one shot cloth casters on a rare occasion. Unlike WoW, DAoC Assassin/Archers could not stun lock their opponents either. Their goal when 1v1 with a non-cloth class, was to get off a big opening and then hope that via evasion, they could get off a stun to finish their opponent.
The whole purpose of the stealth class is that because you can?t stand toe to toe with other classes, you get stealth to pick and choose your fights. Yes I played a both the Archer/Assassin classes in DAoC as well as pretty much all the ranged classes and I had no problem with stealth in DAoC. In fact, my favorite class wasn?t stealth but my Bone Army spec?d BD.

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Which would be fine if stealthers actually played solo, but the stealthers who actually genuinely played solo looking for 1v1 fights, didn't assjam onto visible fights for free RP's and didn't "solo" by running around in a mob of half a dozen other "solo" stealthers who'd all jump the same target simultaneously, effectively don't exist.

And hell, even if you do find one of those fabled 'solo' stealthers, 9/10 they disengage and vanish as soon as they fight turns against them.

The whole purpose of the stealth class is that because you can?t stand toe to toe with other classes, you get stealth to pick and choose your fights.

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That's the point, how is having a class which gets to avoid any fight they could possibly lose good game design?

If your group fought at a mile gate and didn?t have your own realm's eyes there you were just waiting to get your ass kicked by the stealthers there. My god, the Mid/Alb Emain mile gates were nothing but stealthier havens for all three sides and they?d hide there looking to pick off stragglers and get out asap. It?s called learning tactics and if you didn?t account for these guys you got your ass kicked.

Seriously, please stop whining because you got your ass kicked in RvR for being an idiot.

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So stealthers only existed at milegates did they? They had a leash which physically restricted them from moving across the rest of the frontier?

RobXIII_sl said:

Ahh DAOC stealthers. The early days of invisible archers one shotting cloth casters. Totally balanced.

When I was bored I would run around Midgard solo as a 50 cab shortly after release (yea yea, I know lol). ZIK---> dead. Not to mention if the first one didn't get you, your little caster arms would flail and get interrupted just by them targeting you, unless your 10 minute 'quickcast' was not on cool down. Don't even get me started on the melee stealthers one shotting AND NOT EVEN BREAKING STEALTH.

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First, you're a god damn cloth wearing caster running around solo in the frontier. I used to do this as well on my Hunter, two shots, dead caster. Second as a cloth caster running around solo, you deserve to be two shotted. You know that whole rock (caster), Paper (visible melee), scissors (assassin/archer) thing. You are the kind of person I despise because instead of accepting the game mechanics, you want the game to be built for you. Oooh I'm a cloth caster running around solo in the frontier, I should be able to kill anything. WTF, I'm two shotted by an archer, NERF ARCHERS!

RobXIII_sl said:

Yes this was slightly fixed months later, but I was so pissed at the skilless stealther kids that my last week of DAOC, I 2-boxed my buddies infiltrator, had it running while monitored by Excalibur (infiltrators could 'see' all stealthers, so it showed up on radar) and got my revenge.

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Wait you had what? You used a packet sniffing program to detect other stealthers. You take the fucking cake. You bitch because you can't play the game your way so what do you do, you use a 3rd party program to gain an advantage. ASS!

RobXIII_sl said:

That said, after decades of abuse as a non stealther in WoW, Warhammer, Aion, SWTOR, and any other MMO with pvp that loves having stealth+stun+burst, I realize that I'm far too old for this shiat, and will not buy any MMO that has perma-stealth+PVP.

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Great because you are the reason why I MMO's have become the shit storm they are now. Please stay out of any MMO I play in the future.

Justifying the OP nature of PVP classes getting invisibility based on strategic design does not change the fact it worked poorly in DAOC. Yes, it wasn't as terrible as is being mentioned, but a big reason it wasn't was due to the gank groups running around with radar clearing them out.

Since CU is mainly focused on Frontiers PVP, I think it has even less of a place here than in DAOC where it was simply copied from previous games.

The three things that have pretty much ruined PVP in every game I've played have been: Crowd Control, Silly Class Balancing, and Stealth/Invisibility. If one wants to make a good PVP/RVR/similar then limit the fuck out of all those things and focus on unique, fun classes not built from copying previous games and new mechanics.

I've always wondered why stealth in MMOs results in classes that operate like the Klingon Bird of Prey. Is this the only possible interpretation of this ability?

I think CC/AoE needs to be powerful for combatting the zerg.

An unorganized zerg of 300 should be able to fall to a skilled, organized force of 150.

That's not to say an organized force of 300 shouldn't be more powerful than an organized force of 150, though.

Too many PvP games allowed zerging (hi2u early Warhammer) and had to implement the supply line stuff to limit that after it was too late. DAoC's way of handling RvR and zerg v zerg was great, I greatly enjoyed that system over others after my play through again on Uthgard last year. I expect that 300 drool cups will scream about it being too powerful without learning to use similar tactics.

Based on RRs also you could spec your char to be better at 1v1 or better in groups, then again, if you were max rank you could do it all and were a savage monster. I gotta say again... I really liked these systems and hope they all find their way into this one (especially 2handed stealther on viking team lol).

Perma stealth is OK but only so long as its not IMPOSSIBLE to deal with someone if you too aren't a stealther. Glimmers when they move etc sound great to me.

I think that's a pretty fair and objective way of looking at it.

Why not just make their nameplate invisible but leave their character model visible?

So the stealth idea that is being proposed inCamelotUnchainedis intended to address the following:

1. It will not be perma-stealth because residency in the Veil will ultimately kill you.
2. Stealth will not be the same as camo where camo will be used by the archer class and will utilize the terrain, day/night cycle, weather, etc.
3. There will be some sort of deterrent when coming out of the Veil that will prevent stun lock, 1 shots, etc.
4. There will be no vanish mechanic.
5. It will discourage stealth gank groups as the Veil will do more damage the closer that stealthers are to one another within the Veil.
6. The mechanic of Stalkers and Walkers as sort of a cat & mouse minigame should provide interesting dynamics in the Veil.

I don't think it's all that crazy after thinking about it some more but as always, it's all going to boil down to how it's implemented.

I had a RR13 Runie back in the day and we had quite a few tools to deal with stealthers such as ablative shield, root, nearsight, along with some necessary realm rank ones like purge but nothing was going to trump map knowledge, what areas to steer clear of, rolling with groups, etc.

Nirgon_sl said:

I think CC/AoE needs to be powerful for combatting the zerg.

An unorganized zerg of 300 should be able to fall to a skilled, organized force of 150..

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A good organized force will do just that. Unless it's influenced by a ton of shitty CC spells that screw up the fight and make it more about cooldowns then tactics. I'd prefer to have that fight be determined by organization and communications, instead of cheesy abilities.

After the first relic raid in DAOC on Percival loaded with 50s and well organized was locked down by 3 Midgard Healers under 20, it was pretty well understood Mythic screwed the pooch with evaluating CC/AOE. Even with diminishing returns and the plethora of other answers, it really has no place in a good RVR game. Other games have been just as bad.

Crowd Control, like stealth should be severely limited and implemented in a way to be mildly useful. In the past they've been crutches that are instrumental in winning fights, not merely another tool to be used.