Crowfall

Abefroman_sl said:

I didn't think it was that big of a deal since I think we pretty much all give our emails away for beta sign ups.

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It's not that - at least not for me. It's just dumb to make people have to register to advertise your game. I know they want to sell me something, but my interest dies pretty much immediately if there's even the smallest step (like a 60 second registration) between me and the info. Either it'll get lazy-posted somewhere else, or I won't read it, and I won't care anyways. Especially not for something years away.

give betas

Is someone actually making an MMO again? Is someone actually talking about massively interactive gameplay? Not bullshit voxels or Disney characters or instancing bullshit? Holy fuck. Please. Don't. Fuck. Up. Stay as FAR away from Blizzard design paradigms as fucking possible. It should be like a jury selection for hiring. If you've heard of WoW, then you're not allowed to play designer here.

Abefroman_sl said:

I didn't think it was that big of a deal since I think we pretty much all give our emails away for beta sign ups.

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Plus, signing up on the website/forums automatically puts you in a beta group ...

Teekey_sl said:

Plus, signing up on the website/forums automatically puts you in a beta group ...

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I've signed up with 2 email accounts and have seen nothing about a beta group. Where is this wizardry?

Bruman_sl said:

It's not that - at least not for me. It's just dumb to make people have to register to advertise your game. I know they want to sell me something, but my interest dies pretty much immediately if there's even the smallest step (like a 60 second registration) between me and the info. Either it'll get lazy-posted somewhere else, or I won't read it, and I won't care anyways. Especially not for something years away.

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this is true. it makes word of mouth more annoying/harder. can't just link info.

Caliane_sl said:

this is true. it makes word of mouth more annoying/harder. can't just link info.

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If you read the main page they explain that they want people to be involved and play the game of "rampant speculation".

...and that if you're not interested in that, to just wait until the official product announcement.

I'd say for a game that's teasing teasers before an official announcement, the word of mouth with or without people signing up is just fine. And so far, they haven't relied on a dime from crowdfunding to get this shit rolling. Maybe that'll change, but this fucker is leaps and bounds beyond most of the shit looking Kickstarter MMOs that are mostly a pile of Unity assets.

If you didn't get a beta e-mail, I think you were placed in beta group 5. With that said I understand people not wanting to register out of principal, I'll try to keep the thread up-to-date with the latest developments. They've been doing updates mostly on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I registered on 1/10/15 and the only reference of beta was after I validated the account in the email received but no mentioning of group

"Thanks for signing up for the Crowfall beta test!"

I just stopped doing betas because in the dozen I've bothered with not a single time have they listened to feedback about how badly designed X major feature is. Not even like the big ideological instancing vs. permadeath type of things either. Usually I take issue with the basics - combat/UI/inventory stuff. The root problem seems to be that many developers are bad gamers, and can't actually tell what a good game is. It's like getting someone with a shit sense of taste and smell to be your chef.

Agraza_sl said:

I just stopped doing betas because in the dozen I've bothered with not a single time have they listened to feedback about how badly designed X major feature is. Not even like the big ideological instancing vs. permadeath type of things either. Usually I take issue with the basics - combat/UI/inventory stuff. The root problem seems to be that many developers are bad gamers, and can't actually tell what a good game is. It's like getting someone with a shit sense of taste and smell to be your chef.

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Soooooo much this. Most developers are awful and stick to specific things because their ego won't allow them to change. The best developers are those who can admit they are wrong AND do it in a timely fashion and not after a failure of a launch. However it's not easy to do. You have to navigate through the neckbeards and the fanboys in your own internal testing forums.

Every single alpha/beta forum has these groups without fail:

1. Oldschool neckbeards: This game needs longer travel time. This game needs to take 5 months of work to gain max level. Any other argument about putting in "work". Fill in the blank. They typically ignore all aspects of "design" from the developers and try to shape the game to their own expectations regardless of reality.

2. Super Fanboys: Group of players who agree with everything the devs do. "Go back to WOW" is what you'll typically hear.

3. The White Knights: Slightly different from #2 but they aggressively go after people who disagree or get angry. They defend every other group. They tend to attempt to stop discussion, act like assholes themselves and generally never offer anything useful outside of creating threads that summarize everything and get stickied on the forums. They really love when the get a thread stickied. Sometimes they even become forum moderators where they are really really bad at doing it.

4. The Gamer: This is the group you really want to listen to. They also vary from play style and bias. But most of the time they objectively tell you that your game sucks because your UI is fucking god awful and ugly. They tell you that your game really needs nameplates. They tell you that you really need borderless window mode. They tell you that having to click 100 times through a menu to get to where you want is dumb. They tell you that your newbie experience is awful and you really don't need 1000 cut scenes and worthless questing. Stuff like that. The people in group #4 disagree with each other a lot, but it's usually two different sides of the same coin when compared to groups 1-3.

This held true to the last 3 alphas I was in (Rift, GW2, Wildstar).

I think the only thing I really object to is the massive beta sign ups that are followed by ignoring many of those people and making everyone jump through fucking hoops with twitter contests and facebook bullshit. Then they follow that up with founder packs or buying your way into beta. Just fucking get rid of beta sign ups if all you want to do is these stupid fucking contests and key giveaways.

Not that this game actually has a PR/Marketing person, just look at the FAQ they wrote. It was written by a game developer, not someone used to writing something official for public consumption. They are mimicking what they think is what everyone does; get as many people signed up via email or social media so you have an outlet for announcements and a way to spread information about your game. It's marketing 101.

It doesn't say beta registration on the front page but it does on the pop that appears when you click on Create Account



Click on Create Account on front page atCrowfall




Beta registration popup appears. Only details you give them are desired account name, email address and name.

Draegan_sl said:

Not that this game actually has a PR/Marketing person, just look at the FAQ they wrote. It was written by a game developer, not someone used to writing something official for public consumption. They are mimicking what they think is what everyone does; get as many people signed up via email or social media so you have an outlet for announcements and a way to spread information about your game. It's marketing 101.

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I think, considering, they've managed not to completely fuck it up so far. That alone is a major feat for a new MMO on the horizon. They seem to be doing alright given their limitations, and they have something to show for themselves at this stage which Camelot Unchained, Pathfinder, Shroud of the Avatar etc didn't even have, that makes me a lot more comfortable giving them money in a potential crowdfunding campaign.

Big Flex_sl said:

...makes me a lot more comfortable giving them money in a potential crowdfunding campaign.

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My issue with this is that any company looking for money from the crowd has, by definition, failed to convince people WITH money that they'll ever turn a profit. If potential investors, whovery likely are better informed than we would ever be, aren't willing to invest then aren't we accepting a hefty and unknown degree of risk? I feel like potential investors get a behind-the-scenes look, say fuck that, and then the wanna-be devs turn to the "crowd" as a hail mary.

Paying to maybe someday play a game is just weird to me.

Eidal_sl said:

My issue with this is that any company looking for money from the crowd has, by definition, failed to convince people WITH money that they'll ever turn a profit. If potential investors, whovery likely are better informed than we would ever be, aren't willing to invest then aren't we accepting a hefty and unknown degree of risk? I feel like potential investors get a behind-the-scenes look, say fuck that, and then the wanna-be devs turn to the "crowd" as a hail mary.

Paying to maybe someday play a game is just weird to me.

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There is no reason NOT to try to get free money today. Even if you have investors. If you think products backed by massive corporations, or the independently wealthy don't try to crowd fund because they "don't need it"
or that it indicates a lack of additional outside funding, you're crazy. Free money. People will go for it.

Kickstarter Called into Question by Community | GamePolitics

But with that said I'm not worried about a return on an investment, I want a fun PvP game, so I'll throw down some bones on Kickstarter for that. Its a donation. Sure you get a free towel and a beer koozie for your donation, but its not an investment. The return you get is ganking noobs.

The Pantheon kickstarter failed for a reason, many reasons actually. These guys 1) actually seem to have a product and 2) secured 2.6 million as a no-name start up, building upon Shadowbane of all things as their previous "successes", in a industry that has a high cost, high saturation, high failure rate. Thats pretty good considering. So, whatever said investors have seen under the hood might have some merit, but I'm not looking for their business model or a prospectus, as an investor would, donators want to know something useless like how Wizards work. As a potential donator, they seem to have something that, so far, doesn't look like it'll evaporate into vaporware and is at least different enough from other MMOs on the horizon (PvP focused, non-level based, full loot, taking cues from EVE) that I'm willing to "risk" what I blow on supplements in a month to vote with my dollar for those concepts. Concepts all other MMOs in development seem to not reflect.

Again, this title could melt into a shitstorm any day now, but fuck it, its better than following Ponytail's twitter account or reading walls of text from Richard Garriot.

Big Flex_sl said:

I think, considering, they've managed not to completely fuck it up so far. That alone is a major feat for a new MMO on the horizon. They seem to be doing alright given their limitations, and they have something to show for themselves at this stage which Camelot Unchained, Pathfinder, Shroud of the Avatar etc didn't even have, that makes me a lot more comfortable giving them money in a potential crowdfunding campaign.

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I dunno, they might of fucked up by just announcing this early. Unless it's for funding purposes.

Eidal_sl said:

My issue with this is that any company looking for money from the crowd has, by definition, failed to convince people WITH money that they'll ever turn a profit. If potential investors, whovery likely are better informed than we would ever be, aren't willing to invest then aren't we accepting a hefty and unknown degree of risk? I feel like potential investors get a behind-the-scenes look, say fuck that, and then the wanna-be devs turn to the "crowd" as a hail mary.

Paying to maybe someday play a game is just weird to me.

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I don't mind dropping cash on a kickstarter if it's something like 20$. If they show off the game and share their design docs to some degree and I think it might make a good game, I'll give them some cash. No sweat off my back. It's not like you're buying a $1000 fake spaceship.