foundational-principle
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Camelot Unchained's team puts gameplay over graphics
City State Entertainment co-founder Andrew Meggs shares a tough question that any smaller MMO team has to answer from time to time: What happens when you have to choose between graphics, gameplay, and performance in developing an MMO? In a new blog post, Meggs says that for Camelot Unchained, graphics are the first to go on the backburner. "When it comes down to the sheer number of [polygons], any time we have to choose between that and delivering on our core gameplay, we're going to choose the gameplay," Meggs writes. "That requires certain sacrifices." Even so, Meggs said that the team is adept at putting a lot of personality and flair into the graphics it creates, it's just that the focus is creating a game that lasts: "We know that we're building a world for characters to live in, not a theme park for tourists to visit."
Camelot Unchained plans to bring random back
Mark Jacobs knows the problem with your games: They're too predictable. What MMOs need are some good old-fashioned chaos. What happened to the days when you would turn in a quest for which the reward could be endgame armor or it could be a piece of moldy cheese? Let's bring that back into style! All right, not that far. The latest Camelot Unchained development blog is all about randomness, however, with Jacobs laying out another design principle centering around the need for a strong random element in play. Jacobs sees a need for unpredictable outcomes as one of the core elements of a game, something to keep you playing because the game cannot be expected to run a specific course every time. This extends to both the combat system and the state of the world in general, with the former embracing more factors than simple levels and the latter being a bit more dynamic and unpredictable. If you're interested in reading more on this point, take a look at the full rundown at the official site.
