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Some Assembly Required: Mark Jacobs on Camelot Unchained's Kickstarter
Given all the MMO-hopefuls flocking to it, you'd think that Kickstarter is the only way to make a game these days. And in some ways, it is. Indie companies and niche games now have a real chance to see the light of day, whereas previously only the "sure sells" got financial backing. For developers like Mark Jacobs, who as City State Entertainment's CEO spearheads the development of upcoming sandbox Camelot Unchained, Kickstarter is a way to bypass those detached investors and appeal to the gamers themselves. As he told us, "Kickstarter is the perfect platform for an indie developer both to gauge interest in a concept and to receive either all or part of the funding necessary to make the game." Jacobs offered other musings and insights about the role of Kickstarter and updated us on the development of Camelot Unchained in our exclusive interview.
Camelot Unchained's second Piercing the Veil Q&A released
Two weeks ago, CityState treated us to Camelot Unchained's inaugural Piercing the Veil Q&A. Now a second act has followed that first performance, complete with all new community questions and Community Manager Renee Machyousky's official responses. This time around, the questions run the gamut from character characterization to advertising to lore dissemination. While not all of the addressed questions have definitive answers (groups size is still under discussion, and 3-D sound bites haven't even been considered), there's still information to be found. So feel free to take a moment and peek behind the development curtain to catch the latest answers to fans' questions.
Camelot Unchained details progress in latest update
Camelot Unchained has come to the end of another "sprint," City State's term for a roadmap, and CEO Mark Jacobs has whipped up another post detailing everything that was accomplished, noting what didn't make it into the completed pile, and laying out the next batch of tasks to tackle. Of the 25 + items on the list, the team checked off 23; it even threw in a few bonus tasks. According to Jacobs, "Our biggest accomplishment in Sprint 4 was pulling together our entire editor, build system, database, patch server, and patch client into a fully working pipeline." This way, when artists and designers make changes to the world it can be instantly downloaded by the workgroup or even the beta or live game. This paves the way for quick response in the live version. For more details on all the technical accomplishments, check out the full update.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding October 6 - 19, 2013
This was quite a fortnight in the realm of crowdfunding, and for once we don't mean just Star Citizen news! More than one game met its funding goals, with one title proving that fans can be a very passionate lot: City of Titans reached its lofty goal within days. On top of that, two other games joined the fight for funding. Conversely, Alteil Horizons pulled its campaign at literally the last minute to avoid the stigma of an unsuccessful stamp and plans to launch again. Want the scoop on all these stories and many more? Learn the latest right here in Make My MMO.
Jacobs pens new Camelot Unchained lore tidbit
Camelot Unchained continued its semi-regular progress reporting earlier this week with a new lore tidbit focusing on the Bean Sidhe. The Banshee, as the race is also known, is the subject of a new Becoming tale penned by City State's Mark Jacobs. Following the story is a list of possible racial abilities including Scream of Fear, Shatter, and What the Hell is That Thing! After that you'll find some possible racial banes and a Hamadryad animation test. Oh, and you'll also find that last bit embedded for you after the break.
CityState publishes Camelot Unchained Piercing the Veil Q&A
This week's Camelot Unchained update kicks off Piercing the Veil, which is intended to be a regular question-and-answer session devoted to both silly questions and "serious game-oriented questions," according to CityState community manager Renee Machyousky. The first round of questions covers everything from swapping out game music files to class specs to formal guild alliances. In a related post on CityState's Kickstarter page, CEO Mark Jacobs reaffirms that Camelot Unchained is slated for internal testing starting in January.
CityState teases Camelot Unchained animation test
CityState bossman Mark Jacobs has updated Camelot Unchained's website with a fairly meaty post that gives us a good idea where the crowdfunded RvR title stands in terms of development. There's a whole list of completed tasks, as well as a preview of goals for the next sprint. Jacobs also says to expect more updates before the week is out. Finally, the team has released a quick video look at some preliminary Banshee animation which you can view after the cut.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding September 22 - October 5, 2013
Not all games that turn to crowdfunding need a boost to get off the ground. In fact, one new addition to our column this week -- 8BitMMO -- is utilizing this avenue to help accommodate the exponential growth it has experienced over the last couple of years. The other newcomer, however, is actually trying to build from the ground up; City of Titans wants to give displaced City of Heroes fans a new home. In other news, Star Citizen was the news! Videos, interviews, new goals, and more poured forth from this crowdfunding giant this week. We also heard from Embers of Caerus (which has been pretty quite for a long while). Even Neo's Land chimed in with a new demo. And you can get the whole scoop here!
The Game Archaeologist: WAR's biggest battle was with itself
Who would have thought that on WAR's fifth anniversary and just days after I dropped a few favorite things about the game, Mythic would be announcing a closure instead of an exciting celebration? While we can all say it that Warhammer Online's upcoming sunset was expected, nobody predicted that the news would go down on its fifth birthday. Maybe someone over there likes order more than chaos and sees a nice symmetry in this. Personally, I think it felt a little bit mean to do that to the remaining community that was patiently sitting there hoping that the studio would toss them even a small bit of recognition. But facts are facts, and after December 18th, the game of public quests, the Tome of Knowledge, "bears, bears, bears," Slayers and Marauders, RvR and scenarios, exploding squigs, and drunken Dwarves will be no more. There are a few months left to experience the game if one so desires, but the end is finally here. It's caused many of us who were invested in the game back in 2008 to take stock of our memories and deal with the last chapter of this strange, wild rollercoaster that started with a strong IP, a studio steeped in PvP MMO development, and a pair of white sunglasses. In the end, WAR's biggest battle was with itself -- and it lost. Today, let's look at the whys, the what ifs, and the community reaction.
Camelot Unchained reveals the HelBound class
Want to meet a new Camelot Unchained class that's part of the Vikings and can totally sear your soul if you so much as smile strangely at it? Sure you do! Mark Jacobs took the opportunity today to share some early details, lore, and concept art for the HelBound, a healer class that revolves around the theme of duality. "Becoming a HelBound means pain and pleasure, power and weakness for we are as our mother, creatures of a dual nature," the backstory intones. The HelBound is given the choice of a HelMark that will distinguish the character as either a healer or a death-dealing fighter. The class has cool half-masks that channel special effects due to an ancestor hopping along for the ride. According to Jacobs, the HelBound are "quite intriguing and just a wee bit dark."
Camelot Unchained producer's letter talks new race, development progress
Tyler Rockwell recently joined the crew of City State Entertainment as producer for Camelot Unchained, and recently took a few thousand words to introduce himself to Kickstarter backers and CU fans via producer's letter. The update covers Rockwell's design history, introduction to the games industry, and recent migration to CSE's Virginia studios, in addition to a few developmental points regarding Camelot Unchained. According to Rockwell, he is working to learn everything he can about the game and its community while simultaneously unrolling new task-tracking software and getting up to speed on what CU's team is doing. Current projects include updates to the internal patcher, further development of the game's networking system, polish on the engine's character importer, the creation of a brand-new race, and the synchronization of team animators and designers working on a variety of tasks. Rockwell said he considers himself the member of the team that's there to help everyone get the job done, similar to a Battlefield sniper or League of Legends healer. He also included a bit of concept art as "a not-too-subtle hint of what [CSE's] modeler is working on right now," which you can see after the jump.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding August 25 - September 7, 2013
If you build it, they will come. While that adage hold true for baseball diamonds in cornfields, it's a little bit different for MMOs. If you're set on developing a new virtual playground, you get them to come so you can build it! That's the philosophy behind crowdfunding, anyway, and many are latching onto it. So how fare the fields of crowdfunding lately? New projects (Alteil Horizons, Epic Space) sprouted up, one took root and grew stronger (Divergence), and others (Project Snowstorm, Realms of Creation, Enspira Online) withered away from lack of nourishment. See how your favorite projects are growing right here in Make My MMO.
Camelot Unchained contemplates a Berserker race
Would the Beserkers make a better race than a class? That's the big question that City State Entertainment's Mark Jacobs is mulling over in today's Camelot Unchained update. The CEO delivers a rundown of what the team's accomplished recently and what the team has next on the list, but he quickly transitions into a story about the Viking warriors and asks the community if they might be better served as a race. "I've always loved these guys and initial plan was to have them as a melee class within the game," Jacobs writes. "However, it might be a heck of a lot of fun if they were their own race. I thought about it and I decided that the idea of a Berserker Mage or Berserker Healer was just way too much fun." Jacobs is soliciting feedback from the community on the topic and wrapped up the update post with an early look at the Dvergr model.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding August 11 - 24, 2013
Just when you think it will be a quiet couple of weeks on the crowdfunding scene... it isn't. Crowdfunding hopefuls seem to be following the advice of The Gambler this week: Know when to hold them, when to fold them, when to walk away, and even when to run! The funded crowd is holding steady with only a few bits of news, but two projects are on the brink of folding as they are both far short of their goals. Legends of Firestorm, on the other hand, didn't just walk away -- it high-tailed it out of Kickstarter without a word of explanation. In the meantime, thwo new projects (StarCraft Universe and Enspira Online) have joined the scene, and another project resurfaced. Check out the details right here.
Camelot Unchained update talks Cait Sith race
CityState head honcho Mark Jacobs is back for another Friday afternoon update regarding Camelot Unchained. This time the topic du jour is a "possible Arthurian race" called the Cait Sith. Jacobs says that CityState's Cait Sith interpretation will avoid the well-worn anthropomorphic path trod by the Thundercats and untold numbers of fantasy video games. Instead, CU's cats must be "badass," and "must look like the meanest, scariest, top of the food chain beings in the Realm." Unfortunately there's no concept art on display as of yet, but Jacobs says that CityState is working on it. Other potential racial attributes include shapeshifting abilities and a uniquely feline society. Finally, there's an extensive bit of Cait Sith lore. Read all about it by clicking through to the links below.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding July 28 - August 10, 2013
Ah, the joys of bringing more games into the fold. Sadly, we don't know whether this will be just a brief passing in the night or a more permanent stay; that all depends on how newcomers Project Snowstorm and Legends of Firestorm do on their respective Kickstarter campaigns. Will the community help them make their MMOs? We'll keep watch and keep you informed. Speaking of keeping informed, a few of the funded projects found themselves in the news lately -- and we mean more than just crowdfunding king Star Citizen! And we've got it all rounded up right here for your perusing pleasure.
Camelot Unchained status update outlines weekly progress
Mark Jacobs has posted a new update to Camelot Unchained's Kickstarter page. It's quite an epic wall of text, but thankfully he's also included some new environmental concept art and a couple of shots from CityState's UI/web interface. There's also a bit of lore regarding the Stormriders and of course a status report to catch us up on last week's road map. Click through the links below to see all that the dev team has accomplished in recent days.
Camelot Unchained hires more staff, lays out roadmap
Camelot Unchained has emerged from its slumber to deliver a doozy of an update. For starters, City State Entertainment has hired three new full-time staff members for its upcoming MMO: a producer, gameplay engineer, and community manager. CEO Mark Jacobs also vowed to deliver regular roadmaps to the community regarding the current progress and upcoming goals of the team. The first such update mentions initial passes to server loops and the patching system, not to mention work on overhauling the website. The team's also beginning work on the next race: "We have two possibilities right now (both are Arthurians) and one of them is definitely a little easier than the other but we'll see. One draws heavily on a Scottish legend while the other, well, it's different and also not so different at the same time." Finally, Jacobs posted concept art for the Hamadryads after giving his team some guidance where to go with this race. "First, I told them to think of the Hamadryads in a different way than is usually seen for this type of creature," he said. "Secondly, I told them to study both Guild War 2's Sylvari and the Dark Age of Camelot's Sylvan and make sure that our Hamadryads weren't clones, or even close to, those races."
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding July 14 - 27, 2013
Another fortnight down; another MMO hopeful lost. The casualty? Story Quest Online, which didn't come close to meeting its Kickstarter goal. The newest addition to this list, Realms of Creation, is still moving toward its goal and has another 34 days left to reach it. To see more about it, check out the new video after the break. In other news, Pathfinder Online also has a new video, and Star Citizen's Chris Robert's talked at length in an exclusive Massively interview. Even controversial Greed Monger headlined with a demonstration of its house building feature. Catch all the links to these stories right here in Make My MMO.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding June 30 - July 13, 2013
The last two weeks haven't been quiet on the crowdfunding front. While Star Citizen takes the lead with the most news (from ever-expanding coffers to just "finding ways to make the game more awesome"), other titles had their own snippets to report as well. There's also some upheaval in our ranks: We gained a new MMORTS/MMORPG mix project but lost two others from our list when both Skara: The Blade Remains and Anthym didn't meet their goals. And yet another title makes its final appearance before moving on to Betawatch! That's right, folks; TUG is saying hasta la vista to Make My MMO in favor of alpha land. Curious as to what all else has transpired? Then check out the details after the break.
