As of this writing, Crowfall has three days remaining on its Kickstarter, and has reached most of its financial objectives. However, they are very close to some very cool stretch goals, including Oculus Rift support. Click here to see the Kickstarter, and if you want to help out, act now before the Kickstarter ends!
It’s fashionable to point out disclaimers of prior relationships for articles like these. In the case of Crowfall, I share this information proudly. I’m old friends and colleagues of both of Artcraft Entertainment’s principals (as well as multiple other people at the studio). Gordon Walton is one of the smartest, most influential leaders in the Massively Multiplayer space, and likely the best mentor and boss I’ve ever had. Todd Coleman is fresh off of his stint working at Kings Isle (where he was the design id behind the very lucrative Wizard 101), and he’s as driven, insightful and laser-focused a Creative Director as you’re ever likely to find in the MMO space. He is exactly the sort of person you want corralling a crazy MMO startup into reality. Put simply, the pedigree of the studio leadership alone should be enough to convince you to go back Crowfall if you love competitive Player vs. Player MMOs and truly next-gen thinking in the MMO space.
But I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about what they’re actually going to build.
I worked with Coleman on Shadowbane as part of Wolfpack Studios. I joined the company shortly before they shipped the game (to be honest, too late to impact much one way or the other), and I continued there working on Shadowbane and various other products until the game went Free to Play. I joined up because it was a crazy ambitious vision for an MMO – a game about building massive cities, and then going to war and burning them down. It was a damned exciting vision. I frequently joked that it was either going to be a ‘thing’, or it was going to be well worth having front-row seats to the results.
Shadowbane shipped to fervent excitement by the fans. The day we shipped, googling ‘Shadowbane’ got more results than ‘Star Wars Galaxies’, despite us having virtual no marketing beyond board warrioring. The idea behind Shadowbane is a gloriously big one, and judging by the success of Crowfall’s kickstarter so far, is one that still has resonance today.
Shadowbane did not stick the landing on their launch. Technical issues marred the release – mostly due to the inexperience of the team, a problem that Crowfall should avoid – and it took some time to get the game stable enough to actually see how that core vision bore out. And what we found was that the vision for the game was fun and exciting, but had a very interesting fatal flaw. And that is that it never ended.
Shadowbane PvP was completely freeform – no precreated ‘sides’. Instead, each warring faction was a completely player-created guild – often merging into alliances. And the problem is that typically, one of the alliances would get so big and dominant that they’d completely steamroll over any new guild that started up. Because your city tied to your success, steamrolling another guild’s city increased the gap, making it easier for the leaders to maintain control overall. The dominant alliance would typically become so dominant that peace would reign uncontested. Which, if you’re making an MMO based upon the vigors of war, is a disaster.
The most interesting fallout to this, academically, was that one time a server got so bored having nobody to kill that the Alliance leaders decided arbitrarily to ban a player class. For a week, all Thieves were Kill On Sight. Which is cool in an emergent gameplay sort of way, but also reveals how the game was fundamentally sick.
The players got it too. We frequently would have better logins on days we launched a new server than on the days we put up major patches. Shadowbane players LOVE to have a fresh Risk map to start dropping castles onto. When I left, we talked frequently about whether or not it was feasible to make worlds with a shelf life the core to the game’s design. After I left, Shadowbane wiped the servers to kickstart a clean map feel again. Outsiders were aghast, but the cheering of the playerbase was vocal and emphatic.
Shadowbane was not the first game to deal with this problem. The first to do it well was World War II online, which had a similar problem where the game servers would end up locked in a situation where one side (the germans – It was always the germans) would have the other pinned into a miserable no-win situation. WW2OL solved the problem a simple and elegant way – declaring a winner, and resetting the map. Some observers were concerned that this would result in ‘taking away’ some of the earnings of the victors, or ruin the game by destroying the sense of persistence, but this proved not to be the case. The winners were happy enough to get the bragging rights of victory, and the losers were just happy to have hope again.
Crowfall is not Shadowbane 2, but it is clearly deeply influenced by Coleman’s first game. As such, I found the fact that Crowfall’s Kickstarter video spent most of their time discussing their fresh map solution – (“eternal heroes, dying world”) a true indication of the fact that these guys are shooting for next generation thinking about MMO gameplay far and beyond simply cloning WoW.
The ambitions built around these disposable worlds are a lot of fun. Worlds are fully destructable, which means that the difference between a pristine new land and one ravaged by warfare will be made clear. Also, the physics of the worlds can completely deviate from one another – the idea that some worlds may offer better resources, or have stronger rules of magic, for example, become possible.
Will it work? There are no guaruntees. It is a bold, ambitious, and breathtakingly exciting vision for a fantasy MMO – and yet at the same time one built upon solid design thinking and the hard crucible of experience.
Go check it out.
As of this writing, Crowfall has three days remaining on its Kickstarter, and has reached most of its financial objectives. However, they are very close to some very cool stretch goals, including Oculus Rift support. Click here to see the Kickstarter, and if you want to help out, act now before the Kickstarter ends!
It really is an elegant solution to the problem of guild domination in the old Shadowbane title. I myself witnessed it twice and left the world (and game) as a result. Each time it left a bitter taste in my mouth as my character basically was left to rot with no hope of ever returning to a vibrant world.
The politics and the creativeness of the players will always surprise the developers, any sandbox encourages this. The true test of this game is to what extent the Artcraft team has thought out ways of adding tools to the game for the players to discover and innovate their own emergent gameplay.
One thing that has caused me a bit of caution is the lack of specifics in this Kickstarter. We know of few promotion classes, skills they might focus on, or playstyles that they might allow for. People can’t imagine their place in a world if they don’t know how they might fit into it..
Clearly the game will be successful in a sense. Its Kickstarter succeeded. What does this mean for the game? I hope the lessons of Shadowbane are still fresh in the heads of Artcraft principals. No one will trust them with a game again if they have as bumpy of a launch as they did before.
Multiplayer Battletech on GEnie had the “world reset” that would happen in case of faction domination, it is, as far as I know, the first instance of that.
Most MUDs (and Todd used to run one back in the day) would do it, too. I actually hadn’t been aware of the term “nut cupping” before a few months ago. But that’s what happened the first two months of post-launch for Shadowbane. Big alliance against big alliance, and then one of them sort of won, and the other one quit. And then it was all over.
(It’s arguable how much of what went wrong with Shadowbane was a failure of design, though. There was a lot in the way of technology, support, art, and so on.)
Make the power of an AI-controlled faction to be dependent on the balance of the existing factions, so, if a player faction gets too powerful compared with the average of all player factions (or any suitable balance metric), the AI faction gets incredibly powerful, wiping all player factions and providing lore-wise a justification for the world reset.
Crowfall, I wondered why the name sounded familiar and then I saw Allison Theus as senior concept artist (original artist for Extra Credits).
A persistent home site (where the owner sets the permissions) and a shared campaign world that has limited duration sounds interesting. I suppose the holy grail of a persistent open world has held back the idea of a more board-game like state of progression. After all, when you win a game of Risk you don’t start the next game with the territories you ended with, the next game starts with a clean slate.
I’ve often wondered why more MMOs haven’t had a very localised persistent world for the player that allows them to display their progression while linking to a multitude of game types (FPS, RTS, Racing, Fight) that share the same art assets but different game code (sorry armchair programmer here so not sure what the technical obstacle to this would be).
I wonder how well it will scale if there is still a gear barrier between established players and those new to the game.
I find this a major point of keeping out of PvP games. Turn up die. Turn up die. Turn up die. Quit out of frustration because the activity favours those with the better gear who tend to have the better skill anyway, a double whammy. A triple whammy if you consider the victors usually receive more rewards to improve for the next match.
It would be nice to think that there will be no gear grind at all, but each campaign rewards visually unique rewards to put in your own realm.
However, I’m getting a little disillusioned with the sweetening of the kickstarter deal with in-game assets. It’s not limited to Crowfall so it’s unfair to single them out. I bought into the Elite: Dangerous game but unfortunately I missed out on the Kickstarter phase, my money purchased considerably less than those that had the fortune to hear about it earlier.
I would hope and in game advantages would be available as a stand alone purchase.
It’s all about priorities and how they can manage the money flow. This project started development well in advance of the Kickstarter campaign, so they’ve got stuff to show from that development phase.
However it gets done, I know I’d rather have more stuff that makes the game seem better than posters and shippable stuff. I might wear a t-shirt, but that’s about it.
I don’t have an issue with vanity items, forums banners that mark you out as a kickstarter donor or in game titles unique to your contribution level. Like yourself I am unlikely to put up posters but would consider wearing a t-shirt, hoodie or pin badge (if it had a cool logo). If you want to go further you can allow them to submit names for NPC/ places/ items and such like (obviously subject to suitability).
Many of those aspects were offered in the Elite: Dangerous kickstarter but they also went further to offer backers a better ship and starting system locations (a significant enough foot up on entry to bypass quite a few hours play). While they still retained the option to start in a basic ship they could bypass a core part of the experience.
As a digital release there are no overheads to this once it is in the game and as part of a kickstarter no real threat if the goal isn’t reached. I would argue that it is fairer to offer these particular ‘digital’ level kickstarter upgrades as a cash shop purchase on general release of the product.
A kickstarter backer still gets the cool unique vanity stuff from their pledge and the in-game bonus is shared with anyone who wants to put up a similar amount of cash.
The only aspect of Crowfall I’ve yet to track down is on the persistence of power with regards to the specific character. I though it was good that I mentioned Risk and then tracked down a You Tube clip from the developers where they specifically mention Risk and use a very similar example. You don’t want a continuing game of Risk where the board state is maintained, but similarly do you really want a state where beginners start off with 10 armies and experienced players start off with 20 armies or more.
Personally I’ve always thought MMOs and online gaming has been a bit backward in encouraging social play between people in PvP. In nearly all real world sports you have professional level and amateur level play, in amateur play there is usually a host of handicap rulesets to give the lower skilled players an artificial advantage to up their game and give the pros a challenge. In online games the opposite is generally true, the pros slum it with the amateurs and use all the top end gear and 3rd party utilities (voice coms in pre made groups) to dominate.
I understand the need for ranked gameplay where you can face pro players against pro, but I also think it’s time that the amateur levels had some degree of handicap system in place. Hopefully the suggested fluctuation of rulesets may go someway towards that.
“I’ve often wondered why more MMOs haven’t had a very localised persistent world for the player that allows them to display their progression while linking to a multitude of game types”
The Sierra Network had some hints of this, though I don’t recall much ability to display your progression outside of the game spaces. A Tale in the Desert is close; localized is implicit by the size of the world, all the game types and the visible markers of your progression are integrated into the same shared space and interface.
There are a number of persistent worlds aimed at kids that fit this bill. Free Realms, Club Penguin, Upper Deck University.
I’m not aware of any live or announced big-budget MMOs taking this direction though.
I suppose player housing and mini-games comes very close in most of the current crop of MMOs. I’ve stuck with SWTOR so have the various trophies earned through various in-game activities on display.
I didn’t know if it was an inherent limitation of technology that would limit you from having more disparate game types linked together.
You have player housing (maybe a small region of game world around that for customisation) and then zone the other content based on game type. Fancy a little exploration/puzzle game you click on a world map and it takes you to a Tomb Raideresque jungle/cliff climber. Fancy a racing game and you click on the garage select a car and away you go. Not having to cater for complete open gameplay has its own limitations I guess but would the focus on the specific activities out weigh that?
That’s starting to sound an awful lot like Second Life, actually – though I admit I never played it, but understanding was the entire world was a “player hangout”, but depending on the programming wherewithal of the player, certain areas under their control could be one type of game or another.
If the game ends up playing out anything like EVE Online, the single most valuable resource in game is a skilled human player, and the second most valuable resource in game is an unskilled human player.
That tends to balance out the gear issue.
Also, one of the thing EVE got very right is that even a novice player with a low-skill character can fill effective roles in a fight. If Crowfall follows that, then there will be a way for players to come in right away and feel useful.
I’d forgotten all about EVE Online. Unfortunately I just couldn’t get into it, not sure why as I was pretty burnt out on fantasy at the time (and still am to some degree 🙁 ).
CCP were trying to be fairly ambitious, and an example of what I was saying… and possibly of the pitfalls as well. I’m not sure their FPS, Dust 514, was overly well received (I may be wrong I never really followed it in detail) and I’m not sure if Valkyrie will see the light of day anytime soon (or if it will be as integrated as first suggested).
I’ve been interested in game design for a long time now and I feel there’s always been this paradox around open world PvP and PvP balance in general. Go to any MMO forum and there’s a lot of debate about class balance (not so sure it’s easy to get to grips with balance when you are spreading the load between PvP and PvE play) in PvP and yet the open world mode is just about the most unbalanced example of a game zone you can get. Add aspects like gear into the mix and it just gets muddier and muddier.
I would like to think PvP players that value their skill set (reaction time and knowing the abilities they have to use) would jump at the chance to remove the artificial boost of gear from the mix.
Part of me thinks it would be a good place to introduce rogue-like mechanics. The player does not take the front line role, but rather develops a base of operations and sends their troops out into the world. If those troops die then that is a real term loss of assets if they are victorious they may gain some experience and improve what they can do/ equipment they can use (to a limit and again dangerously close to a gear advantage). As a player gets a more experienced character in his base to use it becomes a balance of how much they want to risk loosing that valued asset. I guess it would be very close to the sort of base building and troop management of XCOM.
We used a similar solution in PotBS, though we stuck with pre-defined player nations for the metagame rather than player-created guilds. Players fight for dominance over the ports of the Caribbean, and when one faction reaches a set limit conquest points, the European nations sign a treaty and port ownership resets. Each player of the winning faction receives a boon.
I remember Extra Credits bringing this up a while ago, and it sounds like an awesome idea!
Unfortunately, given I pretty much loathe this kind of pvp game, it’s so not for me, which is disappointing. x.x
If there were a game with this kind of structure, this sprawling open-world warfare strategy RPG beast of a game with the “eternal heroes, dying worlds” foundation, but it were a single-player scenario-based type thing? Or even a co-op game? I’d devour it. PvP? Bleh. x.x
But I know I’m in the minority on that, so I’m hopeful for them! 😀
Aw, man. I’d LOVE this kind of thing, but… no mac support. 🙁