Crowfall - Throne War MMO

I'd read a few articles on this new MMO called Crowfall. It's an interesting concept that's seemingly a combination of Game of Thrones and EVE Online.

Characters are persistent, but the Campaign Worlds are not. Players are Immortal Champions, traveling between realms to fight in an eternal War of the Gods.


[attachment=2908]crowfall1.jpg[/attachment]

Each Campaign World is a server or "realm". It exists for a limited time – typically 1 to 3 months -- or until some win condition is met. During this time, the World will change. Each Campaign has four stages: Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. With each passing season, the World grows more deadly as the land is consumed by an unstoppable legion of undead -- The Hunger.

At the end of Winter, the Campaign is over. A victor is declared, the map is wiped and that World goes offline forever but the characters are NEVER wiped. Instead, the participants take their winnings back home to the Eternal Kingdoms, to prepare and strategize for the next Campaign.

The Worlds are made of voxels (like Minecraft, only much less blocky) – which means the entire World is destructible. We are harnessing VoxelFarm technology to generate an endless succession of unique and interesting Campaign Worlds for you to mine, shape, conquer and destroy.

Their kickstarter launched just yesterday and they've already achieved more than half their goal.

Looks interesting I'll keep an eye on it.

Yeah I've been following this too..

I hate the idea of the worlds resetting. I come from a Dark Age of Camelot background where if the enemy took something that belonged to you then you had no choice but to gather your army and take it back.

Warhammer Online had the reset mechanic and I think suffered for it. Guild Wars 2 has the reset mechanic and I think it suffers for it.

The problem with resetting is that you don't get the second half of the game. They underestimate how much fun defending can be and how awesome it can be to hold something that belongs to your enemy and trying to keep hold of it against increasing odds.

That said I understand the fear (and it is fear that has driven this design decision). The fear that if somebody dominates the others get bored/log off/switch sides and the game stagnates. Why would you keep trying when you keep failing?

This is a new-age problem because back in the old-en-days you never used to fight for personal gain (well .. not as much) so it was all about pride. This isn't how it's going to work in Crowfall. You aren't aligned to a "home" side .. You simply choose who you want to fight for when you join a campaign and can change that choice when you join the next campaign.

I honestly think this is the wrong way to go from a design point of view despite totally understanding the reasons for it.

It also requires a ... mindset change .. characters are god-like beings and do no die. They simply returned to their own world when the campaign is over, win loss or draw. So if you try to think of campaigns more like worlds that you simply leave never to return to .. rather than that world hitting a giant reset button .. it because easier to swallow.

However for that to hold each campaign has to feel significantly different than the one before it. This is where their procedurally generated content comes into play and it has to be amazing for it work. We all know how a poorly produced and badly maintained procedurally generated content can be (As bad as it was removing it sucked arse Cryptic!).

But .. who knows .. like all these things it probably comes down to gameplay. A great combat system is needed for sure.

Camelot unchained is direct competition and started with a 2 million kick starter. 800k seems crazy low.