play-2-crush
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Crowfall details starting, finishing, and resetting by Hunger
The latest development blog from Crowfall establishes a problem. The nature of any sort of permanent game is to fall into stagnation. Eventually, the most powerful players control everything and there's no room for new people to come in. You want room for new people to come in. But you also want to have long-term effects to what takes place in the game rather than just resetting everything as the game approaches a static state. What's to be done? According to the aforementioned development blog, you reset... but by pieces. At the center of Crowfall's design lies a cycle of birth, corruption, and demise. Characters remain, but as they participate in individual campaigns of the game there's space for players to make a lasting impact on the game world. But the continual destruction of each campaign as certain players "win" ensures that there's always space for something new to happen, that no one ever becomes unassailable in every sense. Take a look at the full post for a clearer picture of how the game intends to keep players engaged by periodically wiping the board clear of pieces.
Crowfall's Legionnaire is a four-legged powerhouse
Today's a series of firsts for Crowfall reveals. It's the first glimpse of the game's second announced class, the Legionnaire. It's the first look at a character who is other than human -- and is in fact a Centaur. And it's the title's first in-game environment screenshot. Crowfall has also posted a handy FAQ that goes into depth about the character creation process, teases Mac support, and eschews traditional MMO levels as a means of progression.
Raph Koster is collaborating on Crowfall [Updated with video]
So here's a funny story: Yesterday, the Massively writers were shooting the breeze in team chat when the subject of sandbox devs who were not also closet-gankers came up. "When do you think Raph Koster will finally make a new sandbox?" I asked, half kidding and half wistful. "Never," Jef answered. Then we commiserated for a bit. It turns out we were remarkably prescient because that day is... today. ArtCraft, the studio working on the nebulous PvP MMO Crowfall, announced today that Koster, the backbone of sandbox legends Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies, has been collaborating with the Crowfall team on the game's design for a year already as a "formal advisor and design consultant." "Raph and I have been working together for about a year on the design architecture for Crowfall," ArtCraft's J. Todd Coleman wrote. "At the heart of this game, we have two core systems: dynamic territorial conquest and a player-driven economy. Marrying these two concepts is the holy grail of MMO development, and Raph is arguably the best person in the world to help us solve this puzzle." Koster gets a blurb of his own in the PR: "There isn't anything on the market like Crowfall, and it has been a long time since some of these design ideas were explored. There's a very specific audience out there waiting for a game like this -- the conflict, the real economy -- that has been looking for new steps beyond the games of ten years ago." Your move, MMO genre.
Crowfall teases fealty system, ad/disad mechanics
Upcoming MMO Crowfall is rolling out new teases this week, including some concept art of guild banners and a screenshot of character creation, which suggests an advantage/disadvantage system no doubt intended to tug the heartstrings of former Shadowbane players. But what has our attention is the newly unveiled fealty chart, which definitely whisks Shadowbane or Asheron's Call immediately to mind. "This isn't a guild org chart," Crowfall's J. Todd Coleman cautions. "We support guilds (and guild structures) but we've laid a different system on top of that, which ties player fealty directly to land ownership. More on that system, and how it ties to siege conquest, will be coming soon." Coleman promises "a more substantial update coming later this week." We've included all three images below.
Crowfall says 'play2crush' wasn't meant to mean 'everyone else sucks'
Were you put off by Crowfall's hardcore "play2crush" reveal just before Christmas? You weren't alone. One player told studio ArtCraft that the original announcement "felt a little too political attack ad" -- and he got an official response on the game's new forums. Creative Director J. Todd Coleman explained that Crowfall's controversial introduction wasn't quite meant how it was taken: You know, that original play2crush site wasn't meant to be "everyone else sucks." It was a mea culpa. We're the guys who make these games. The first line was "where did WE go wrong?" "We" didn't mean everyone else, it meant us. It meant me. I wrote that because I feel like I have let you down... by not pushing myself to innovate. It was too easy to pitch "wow in space" or "wow with vampires" or "wow with space vampires." I want to fix that. I want to build something new. The game released its first screenshot and city siege concept art (below) yesterday, exposing a stylized graphical theme and meaty statistics panel. You can sign up for the beta by rolling up an account on the official site right now. The mysterious countdown timer on the front page currently has just over 40 days remaining. [With thanks to Leiloni for bringing the post to our attention.]
Crowfall's first screenshot shows the Knight's character creation
How much can you ascertain from a single screenshot? In the case of Crowfall's first in-game glimpse, perhaps plenty. Creative Director J. Todd Coleman posted Crowfall's first screenshot on the forums today: a snap of the upcoming title's character creation screen. It shows a Knight (one of 12 or more archetypes listed) along with the class' many statistics. These include a few intriguing anomalies such as "warmth conversion" and "life on hit." Coleman said that the numbers are just placeholders for now and that the Knight is "a fully modeled and animated avatar" at this point. He wanted players to get a feel for the Crowfall's art style and interface as well as a hint as to something else: "There is more to this one than meets the eye... the clues are there, for those with a solid design instinct and an eye for detail."
