Crowfall

Also want to share some areas of note... (you may draw comparison to Pantheon if you desire)

J Todd Coleman | Creative Director
"Massive Gamer magazine as the #1 Most Influential Game Developer in the World."

Gordon Walton | Executive Producer
"He has been VP of online at Origin Systems, managing Ultima Online, VP and executive producer at Maxis, managing the Sims Online and VP and executive producer at Sony Online Entertainment on Star Wars: Galaxies. Walton then went on to become the Co-studio GM at BioWare Austin, on Star Wars: The Old Republic and was most recently the VP and executive producer at Disney Playdom"

Thomas Blair | Design Lead
"In that time he shipped two expansions as a Designer on EverQuest (Planes of Power, Legacy of Ykesha). He transitioned to the Star War Galaxies team during the implementation of Jump to Lightspeed and remained through two more expansions eventually becoming Lead Designer. Post Galaxies he led the DC Universe Online team as Lead Systems Designer while building the initial launch game.

Thomas is a very "technical" designer, getting his hands dirty in the underlying systems that make MMOs work. He's listed as theinventor on two patents for work on Star War Galaxies, specifically the Beastmaster system and the Entertainer "Build-a-Buff" system."

Bill Dalton | VP of Development
Since earning a PhD in Astrophysics in the mid 90s Bill has worked primarily in MMO developmentBill had the good fortune to work on some of the industry's earliest MMO products at Kesmai (Air Warrior franchise), Origin Systems (Ultima Online) SOE, (Star Wars: Galaxies) and more recently Bill has led technical development at BioWare (Star Wars: The Old Republic) and Zenimax Online Studios (The Elder Scrolls Online).

Raph Koster | Design Consultant
Raph Koster was the lead designer on the seminal online world Ultima Online, which first brought online worlds to the mass market. Until March 2006 he was Chief Creative Officer for Sony Online Entertainment, makers of EverQuest, where he previously led the design of Star Wars: Galaxies.

Scott Phillips | Chief Architect
He was lead programmer on Ultima Online at age 19, shipped it at 21.

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That's nothing to sneeze at... i'm not saying these guys are great or going to be the second coming but, I can't name one person from Pantheon. I can maybe recognize 2-3 at Camelot Unchained but these guys have decent resumes in the industry.

Muligan_sl said:

Wait, where's the Unit3D stock art logo/watermarks? I'm just not use to this type of marketing....polished screenshots that looks as if the team held themselves accountable for presenting high-quality, original content. What's up with that? New trend?

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lol'd.

I heard this game has all you nerds in a flutter.

Oh please god, not an Elderscrolls Online and Planes of Power dev team.

Atleast Dalton was a tech director and didn't work on much of the main problems with ESO. *reaching*

Redflags:
POP
ESO (Anything non Cyrodiil related)
SWTOR (anything non-story/leveldesign/voice over related)
DISNEY PLAYDOM

Greenflags:
SWG Patent holder (Entertainer skills) **Big plus here**
DCUO
Raph Koster (Maybe)

Not disagreeing with your redflags but PoP is probably my top 3 favorite expansions. I know it had its problems and I vividly remember the Rathe Council, flagging, PoT, and all the other issues but outside of the stones kinda messing with the community, I really liked the content and raids. It was probably some of our best guild memories but maybe that was because Luclin/Vex Thal was such as negative experience.

Bottom line, I would support their Kickstarter but their "big announcement" will need to be pretty impressive.

The majority of their devs haven't made a relevant game in over a decade.

The design docs we've seen are interesting but I'm not holding my breath due to precedent.

PoP was great Wakandan, rathe council good fucking times.

Draegan_sl said:

The majority of their devs haven't made a relevant game in over a decade.

The design docs we've seen are interesting but I'm not holding my breath due to precedent.

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Has there really been a relevant MMO in the past decade? WoW happened, and the industry stopped. Small refinements here and there, but that's about it. I'd say Minecraft is the next game to really take the internet by storm, and it took it a long time before it was multiplayer.

League of Legends is probably the biggest online game out there. I think it's the most profitable too.

Relevant MMO though? I dunno, I wouldn't discount every game, each had it good parts and their warts.

RIFT - "Dynamic Systems", fast paced content creation.
SWTOR - Follower/Mission system (Which is why we have WOW Garrisons), Story telling elements
Warhammer - Public Events
GW2 - Amazing world creation, heart/quest/open world leveling methodology.
ESO - Excellent class system
Wildstar - hahah just kidding. Useless game.
TERA - Excellent combat system. Proof positive it can be done with NA infrastructure
Neverwinter - Same as TERA.
Archeage didn't do anything except tell us people still want pvp games.


I can't really think of any others right now. But your point overall is correct. No MMORPG has really done many things correctly to be a smashing success while plenty of the games up there are very successful (some aren't).

FFXIV is doing pretty well for itself, surprised people tend to forget about it. The screenshot below was from their Patch 2.5 video released in January. Granted there is ambiguity on whether they measure accounts/subscribers but, if history repeats itself, they will be reporting on actual subscriber numbers when they release their fiscal report in March. Very interested to see where they end up with a full year of solid content releases under their belt.

Eh.. beat turn 5 before they fixed it.. got bored.

Tuco_sl said:

GW2 streamlined large scale siege PVP. It has some critical failings in that it wasn't open enough, but its matching system and general gameplay is the best so far.

AA has the best (only) sea gameplay in MMOs. That and AC4 showed that sea-gameplay can be really, really fun. AA also has the best player housing and land ownership I've seen and shows that player housing areas spotting the terrain makes for a much richer area. It also has an open class system like ESO but is more constrained. It also shows how much fun gliders can be without really destroying your gameworld like flying mounts can.

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Good points all around. Though I might have to disagree with housing. EQ2 and Rift did really good jobs with it, but it wasn't in the open world so AA has that over it.

FFXIV, to me, is the closest thing to part II of the MMO genre. It pretty well has all the classic elements with updated graphics and a beautiful, memorable soundtrack. Sure, FFXIV has incorporated some of today's MMO "standard" features but it really felt like a classic MMO (just remove the cut scenes).

EQ2 had the absolute best housing in my opinion. They also had the best PvP at one time. DAoC was solid too and WAR could have been PvP supreme but ignored core issues and never listened to their player base.

I like the lists above... I think everyone has really hit the nail on the head on what games have done well. It is just unfortunate their good points were covered in mediocrity.

Outside of WoW, if I was to play a MMO today, looking for the most complete game, I would say FFXIV has done the best overall.

In addition to the above, the content released for FFXIV over the last year has been staggering. It's the only MMO that does a solid job justifying its subscription cost. They have a full-fledged expansion coming in the Spring, with two more solid content patch en-route before release.

Vitality_sl said:

Eh.. beat turn 5 before they fixed it.. got bored.

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Well, you've only missed...

15x4m lvl 50 Dungeons

18x8m Trials

6xBeast Tribe Factions

3x8m Raids

3x24m Raids

1xClass (Rogue/Ninja)

PVPThe Wolves' Den (Arena)

PVPCarteneau Flats (24m)


In addition, they've also added Treasure Hunts, Chocobo Raising, Mulitple Expansions to Relic Quest, Multitude of Seasonal Events, Player/Guild Housing, Expanded Main Story Quests, Hildibrand Quest Lines, New Gear/Recipes, New Hair Styles, Delivery Moogle Quests, Ventures, etc.

So yeah, there's a lot of content.

think you insulted the man Vit.

I guess what I was aiming at is the fact a true MMO, with subscriptions, no cash shop, and a lot of classic elements can work. I like the statement above that is justifies the subscription cost. Simply make the game worth paying for and people will pay for it. Don't try to gimmick me so you can make money with your crappy game.

When I see FTP/cash shops it's like saying our game isn't worth it so we'll try to get you another way. Reminds me of the guarantee scene from Tommy Boy.

Free to Play? Micro transactions? Free to play a bunch of crap that isn't worth paying for....

Muligan_sl said:

When I see FTP/cash shops it's like saying our game isn't worth it so we'll try to get you another way. Reminds me of the guarantee scene from Tommy Boy.

Free to Play? Micro transactions? Free to play a bunch of crap that isn't worth paying for....

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This hasn't been true in like 6 years. It's completely stupid to say too.

The dude founded Wolfpack/Shadowbane. Fuck all to hell the SB.exe errors, gold dupes, server hacks and all that but really SB at it's core was the tits. Legends were born, legends were crushed, nation building, real political drama, back stabbing, thievery, centaurs, resource control, real player pvp w consequences and looting with no regard for a pve treadmill. We should be jumping for joy play to crush is not only back but evolving. Rather than acting like a bunch of grumpy old sand vags we should be celebrating this opportunity.

Draegan_sl said:

This hasn't been true in like 6 years. It's completely stupid to say too.

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Completely disagree... By supporting FTP/Microtransactions within the MMO genre you are supporting a business model where it is more important to develop shop items than the game itself. Look at SWTOR and ESO. No one was going to pay to play those games. The only reason to play them is they have some decent gameplay and/or features that you can justify screwing around with because it is as no cost. So what happens now, you have developer attention, time, and resources assuring there are attractive items in the cash shop. Why? That's how the business is staying afloat and the power bill is paid.

My point is this... I would rather pay $15 for a team of developers to focus on a game, than some random amounts here and there for appearance items, pets, mounts, etc. FTP tells me, you wouldn't play this if you had to pay for it but it's not bad for free.

WoW has the resources to pull it off. They have enough money they can pay people to cover the shop. It may be a fun outlet for some to design some of that stuff. If you want, you can throw LoL in there too. However, MMO's can't keep starting out with a subscription ultimately to result into a FTP model as it is creating a stigma in the genre.

You cannot tell me if two games were to open today, and one maintained a sub model for 3 years and the other were to within 6 months drop their sub cost and go FTP that this would not mean something to you.

Maybe we are misunderstanding one another a game FTP and micro transactions has much more to prove to me than a game that can successfully maintain a sub model.