Crowfall- PvP MMO "With Consequences"

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Feb 4, 2009
34,506
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I'll watch it now. I'm still very skeptical and honestly it looks a bit cartoony.
I've simply been snookered far too many times.
 

Wardawg1001

Senior member
Sep 4, 2008
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Half way to their $800,000 goal in just 8 hours. I hope they have some stretch goals ready to be posted...
 

darkewaffle

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2005
8,152
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Watching the video for a minute and listening to those two talk didn't really inspire much confidence in me. Also for the crowd I would suppose it's intended for it does have a little bit of a cartoony look to it, some of the models look very WoWesque imo.
 
Feb 4, 2009
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I wonder how they plan to address the whaambulance like "Whaa my play area has decayed" and "Whaa magic isn't as effective in the new world I'm in" plus "whaa I'm paying I want my old world back that decayed"
 

TallBill

Lifer
Apr 29, 2001
46,044
62
91
Love the concept. I wanna smash my enemies, not just kill them and watch them respawn.
 

imaheadcase

Diamond Member
May 9, 2005
3,850
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I don't care about the graphics as long as gameplay is solid fun, i think the one thing people are loving about this is the generated worlds. Lots of people grow tired of MMO because they have seen/done everything already..even after a few months. I felt that way with Guild Wars 2 and so many other games.

It also has 12 classes, and leveling can be done in game or offline leveling which is nice. As for crafting i don't know, so many games say they making crafting awesome, but never really is.

I do hope it is great, I put $100 towards it. The video for it on kickstarter seems to show part of the game actually working, some parts don't look rendered.
 

Chiropteran

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2003
9,811
110
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The video for it on kickstarter seems to show part of the game actually working, some parts don't look rendered.

This video shows a lot more gameplay footage. The definitely have something of a working engine, even if it's still incomplete. Alpha 1 is starting summer of this year.
 

Chiropteran

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2003
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Big info dump today.

Character Progression FAQ

How does character progression work?

Character progression happens in a few different ways.

At character creation, the player selects an Archetype, and a series of Advantages and Disadvantages.

This is done on a point system; each character (or avatar) has a set number of points that can be spent to improve the character. Additional points can be gained by taking Disadvantages. There is a limit to the number of Advantage and Disadvantage runes that can be added to each character.

After creating the character and advancing your base skills to a level of competency through gameplay, each Archetype has the option to promote to another Class or occupation. We are planning for multiple promotion classes for each base Archetype.

The promotion classes enable the player to skew their character in a specific direction. Want to be a Knight who does more damage? Promote to Swordsman! Want to be a Knight who has even more defensive skills? Promote to Crusader! Want to be a Knight who has a ranged weapon and skills? Promote to Sentinel!

Can I change my Promotion Class later?

No. There are a few changes that are permanent, and this is one of them. Choose carefully.

What does a promotion class grant?

In almost all cases the promotion class increases your skill maximums on all relevant skills. This enables the player to train their skills deeper into a chosen path, becoming a master at what they do.

Most of the time promotion also grants new powers to use in combat and extends the awesomeness of existing powers.

Sometimes promotion will grant a new weapon that can be used along with skills and powers that accompany it. Such as a melee class gaining the ability to use a bow and the skills that accompany bow usage.

Promotion also offers the character a final chance to alter any of their advantages and disadvantages. At this point we think the player fully understands what would be useful to their character as a permanent choice.

What are the requirements to promote?

We are still working on the exact mechanics that will allow a character to promote to their promotion class but are pretty sure it will have something to do with skill points. Either earn a specific total amount of skill points or train some specific skills to a required amount. It might even be a combination of both.

After I select a Promotion Classes, am I done with customization?

No. In addition to promotion classes, characters can also take Disciplines, which are a type of “sub-class” to further customize your character.

Disciplines are applied by collecting Runestones in the game, and applying them to your character. Not every Discipline will be available to every Archetype – but every Archetype will have access to many, many Disciplines.

Disciplines allow you to further customize your characters skills and powers. Want to focus that Knight on more sword damage? Or increasing his Strength attribute? Or turning into a Werebear? These are the types of customization effects that can be added by using Disciplines.

Discipline runes can increase your skill max with certain skills, grant access to new skills and powers, grant you new crafting recipes, or give you the ability to master weapon types that are normally restricted.

The skills, powers and recipes granted by Disciplines are typically very thematic. For example, we wouldn’t have a generic “Weapon Master” discipline that gives you a bonus to swords, spears and shields – but we might have a “Gladiator” discipline that does exactly that, because it makes sense that a Gladiator might have that particular collection of skills.

Discipline Examples:

Alchemist Runestone

“Wine from Water, Lead from Gold”

Grants Potion Recipes
Grants Alchemy Skill
Grants Inventory Bag (Potions) - Potions placed in Potion bag will not explode when hit
Werewolf Runestone

“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack”

Grants Limited Time Transformation Power - Grants Werewolf combat powers while in Werewolf form
Grants Bonus Damage Vampyre Stat
Increases Movement speed Stat
Grants equipment slot: Jorts
Can my Disciplines be changed?

Yes, you can overwrite existing Discipline Runestones with new ones. Doing so will remove or reduce the benefits granted by the previous Discipline, and destroy the old one in the process.

Do Disciplines have restrictions?

Some of them do, usually in any case where an animation set is required for that weapon which that archetype may not have. For example the Cavalier Discipline (which grants shield mastery and block powers) would not be usable by Duelist archetype, because they do have the necessary skill pre-requirements (shields) or animation sets.

Can you give me some examples of other Disciplines?

Sure. Here are a few examples.

Standard Bearer

Rune Caster

Collector

Lapidary

Beastmaster

Ratcatcher

Blood of the Ancients

Berserker

Swashbuckler

Stonecutter

Commander

Where do Disciplines Runestones come from?

Disciplines are found by participating in Campaigns.

The exact method varies: they can be scavenged (meaning they will spawn in ruins, or uncovered as buried treasure when tunneling in the ground), some can be crafted (using additives and resources found in the Campaign worlds) some can be granted as a special Campaign reward.

Can Discipline Runes be traded?

Yes, but since they can’t be removed (only destroyed), you can only use them if they have not yet been applied to a character.

Tons of win IMO. This isn't WoW style progression where once you pick a class that is all that defines you, it looks like even characters of the same class could be totally different based on promotion choice, disciplines, and starting runes.
 

Wardawg1001

Senior member
Sep 4, 2008
653
1
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Yes, the character creation and advancement system looks very much based on the Shadowbane system, which is a very good thing. Love it.
 

GoodRevrnd

Diamond Member
Dec 27, 2001
6,803
581
126
Ya that character building is almost 100% Shadowbane. Character archetypes was one of the best parts of that game.
 

maniacalpha1-1

Diamond Member
Feb 7, 2010
3,562
14
81
How come games don't have stretch funding goals that, instead of more features, basically amount to hiring extra devs to get it out faster and with more manpower for bug fixes?
 

Xed

Golden Member
Nov 15, 2003
1,453
0
71
Looks interesting but with only one ruleset at launch I think I'll wait and see.
 

Chiropteran

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2003
9,811
110
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How come games don't have stretch funding goals that, instead of more features, basically amount to hiring extra devs to get it out faster and with more manpower for bug fixes?

Hiring more devs to get it out faster doesn't usually work. However, the first stretch goal (that they already hit) did including hiring an extra animations artist.
 

PrincessFrosty

Platinum Member
Feb 13, 2008
2,301
68
91
www.frostyhacks.blogspot.com
Fun for the griefer, not the griefee.

Corpse camping is so much fun for basement dwelling nerds trying to wreak vengeance on the world for their bullying as a child.

Games like that are doomed to failure, the market has proven as much.

It's a problem for sure. It really requires a good balance of "safe" areas such as towns where guards can defend loners and it also requires encouragement of joining a guild, you're safer in guilds because you can travel with guildmates and generally speaking you can ally with other guilds.

These are not MMOs you can really log into and wander around solo, they're the kind of game where teamplay is more important, that was always the case in Eve especially late game, all the major gameplay came from faction vs faction warfare.
 

Smoblikat

Diamond Member
Nov 19, 2011
5,184
107
106
Looks really good from the few pages ive read. I will have to look into it mor eonce I get home.
 

Fingolfin269

Lifer
Feb 28, 2003
17,948
31
91
Some of my best mmo memories are from shadowbane. The gameplay wasn't great but the politics made it fun. Loved town destruction but my favorite memory was the all night defense of our town. Almost made it to server restart... Almost.
 

Chiropteran

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2003
9,811
110
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Two days left on kickstarter. 1,416k / 800k currently, next stretch goal is Minotaur Myrmidon archetype at 1.5 million.

Not too worried about reaching that goal, as they will continue to take pledges after kickstarter until release, so plenty of time to reach it. Kinda curious if they will do anything big in the last days of kickstarter to pull in some last minute pledges.
 

ctark

Senior member
Sep 6, 2004
726
1
0
This game is still going strong and taking shape. Looks like its going to have an appeal to the hardcore and the casual as there are many things you can do and different rulesets and worlds you can play in.

I've been playing since very early Alpha and combat is slowly coming together. Combat isn't perfect, but its a lot different that your traditional MMO. My biggest complaint would be sometimes people can just run forever and kite you and it ends up in a stalemate. At first I hated this but maybe that is how combat would realistically be. It is not very CC heavy and that is a huge plus.

They are also going to have nested sub guilds within guilds. So lets say maybe you and 10 of your friends want to play this game, you could find a bigger guild to join and still retain your guild structure and compete with the big boys.

My biggest concern right now is server stability. We are struggling with just 40 people in the hunger dome on their amazon cloud server. I'm completely ignorant to their plans so this might not be as give of an issue when the game nears launch. But the unity engine hasn't really shown it can handle several thousand clients.

I urge people looking for that old school MMO with a more modern approach to keep following this.

Here is a recent article with the devs
http://www.makinggames.biz/features/crowfall-how-mmo-veterans-try-to-reinvent-the-genre,10105.html
 

GoodRevrnd

Diamond Member
Dec 27, 2001
6,803
581
126
This is an older article from them, but http://crowfall.com/en/news/the-big-reveal-crows-and-vessels/

There appears to be a significant degree of character progression that happens at the ACCOUNT LEVEL. This is fantastic for those of us that want to experience the whole game and don't want to grind up 6 different characters. It's like a developer finally understands there's a lot of us out there looking for a hardcore game without a hardcore time commitment.
 

ctark

Senior member
Sep 6, 2004
726
1
0
This is an older article from them, but http://crowfall.com/en/news/the-big-reveal-crows-and-vessels/

There appears to be a significant degree of character progression that happens at the ACCOUNT LEVEL. This is fantastic for those of us that want to experience the whole game and don't want to grind up 6 different characters. It's like a developer finally understands there's a lot of us out there looking for a hardcore game without a hardcore time commitment.

I'm hoping they unveil the crafting system soon. I have a feeling its going to be the most in depth crafting system we've ever seen from an MMO. If you want to do combat and crafting at the high end, you will probably have to have two accounts because you will be training combat skills on one character, and crafting skills on another character. If you played SWG you know how good the crafting was in that game. This game has Raph Koster who designed the crafting system in SWG. He's not a developer, but they have hired him as a consultant to design system.
 

KMFJD

Lifer
Aug 11, 2005
29,044
41,733
136
i've been interested in this one for a while as well, looks really good
 

Chiropteran

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2003
9,811
110
106
Really looking forward to the final game, but TBH the alpha tests haven't been my thing. Jumping around a little arena area fighting to the death with an unfinished game engine... no thanks. I'm more interested in controlling zones of the world, hit and run tactics, the politics of the whole thing, etc.

Still, love the way things are coming along.