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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.
Garriott and crew show off early Shroud of the Avatar gameplay
Richard Garriott and two of his Shroud of the Avatar lieutenants took the stage at RTX 2013 in Austin, Texas, last weekend to preview Portalarium's upcoming crowdfunded fantasy opus. Joining Garriott were former Ultima Online producer Starr Long and SotA technical director Chris Spears. Garriott's presentation started with a historical look at roleplaying games and the game industry as well as insight into his plans to leverage crowdfunding and community involvement to reinvent the genre. Aside from the early gameplay footage, Garriott also had plenty of interesting anecdotes to share about the gamemaking process, including the differences between traditional development -- where you can "smoke and mirror" the unfinished bits until you're ready to launch -- and crowdfunded work, which is done largely in full view of potential customers. The full presentation video can be found after the break. The gameplay demo starts around the 22-minute mark.
Shroud of the Avatar team adds Starr Long to the mix
Fans of the Ultima series should be happy to hear that Shroud of the Avatar has added Starr Long to its roster as executive producer. Don't recognize the name? You should; according to Richard Garriott, Starr Long is the reason that Ultima Online existed in the first place. As Garriott puts it, while there had been discussions about doing an online installment of the series, Long was the one who was insistent that Ultima Online needed to happen. He was so much the driving force behind it that Garriott points to him as the push that kept him working on the game. A formal announcement will be made on Saturday at RTX 2013 alongside a special demonstration of Shroud of the Avatar, which will be available via livestream. If you've been hoping to see some of the key players behind UO back together, it looks as if you're in luck. [Source: Portalarium press release]
Shroud of the Avatar introduces layaway program for backers
Portalarium's Kickstarter campaign for Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues cruised past its initial funding goal of one million dollars, landing at $1,919,275 by the time the clock ran out. Though the Kickstarter drive has ended, the company is still taking pledges for the project through the official SotA website. In fact, SotA offers a whopping 22 different pledge tiers ranging from $10 to $11,000. If you don't have $11,000 in your pocket but would still like to pledge as much, Portalarium has announced a layaway program that will help backers contribute larger amounts of money by breaking the payments up into smaller chunks. The layaway plan, which should go live this month, establishes monthly payments for big pledges -- and assigns a monthly finance fee. The company is promising another update this month with more details on the plan, which was designed in part due to backer requests. The layaway plan will be available to both new backers and those looking to upgrade their pledge tier. [Thanks to FlyinBuddha for the tip!]
Some Assembly Required: Your guide to MMO sandboxes in 2013 and beyond
Welcome to Massively's guide to MMO sandboxes in 2013 and beyond. I've collected the essential details on all the major sandbox titles releasing this year and in the near future in one easy-to-reference article. If you're wondering whether ArcheAge forces you to PvP, or if you can't tell The Repopulation from Origins of Malu, this is your post. I'll be updating it as game features are added, removed, or revealed, so be sure to use the comments to let me know if I've overlooked a particularly noteworthy item. Finally, I want to point out that this isn't an exhaustive list because of the sheer number of sandbox projects ongoing. For now, I'm choosing to focus on the ones that will be playable in 2013/2014 as well as the projects that have a big-name developer attached.
Shroud of the Avatar is well and truly Kickstarted
Time has run out for the Kickstarter campaign for Richard Garriott's Shroud of the Avatar. The closing tally for the campaign was $1,919,275, raised over a humble $1,000,000 goal. When you throw in the donations made through the game's site rather than Kickstarter, the whole effort raked in just over two million dollars. Given that the game hit its funding goal back on March 19th, we realize the success of the campaign was never really in question. The project has enough funding to have unlocked nine or ten stretch goals, including a Tracy Hickman novel and a host of systems and content goodies.
Rewards expand for backers of Garriott's Shroud of the Avatar
If you've been meaning to throw money at Richard Garriott's Shroud of the Avatar Kickstarter campaign but haven't yet, the good news is that there are now more rewards for people who pledge support to the game. The $50 reward tier now includes a special Immortality Fruit, a special title, and early access to your surname. At $60, you also get a special tunic, weapon, and pet. The new $80 tier adds in future access to episodes 2 & 3 of the game, an indestructible starter tool, and the ability to tame an elusive monster out in the wild (assuming the game reaches its stretch goal for the taming system). Those who have already donated will receive the rewards as well, but there are several more expanded tiers that might convince fans to bump in a few more dollars.
Tracy Hickman tapped for writing duties on Shroud of the Avatar
If you were a fan of fantasy games in the 1980s, you know Richard Garriott from the Ultima series. (Our younger readers are more familiar with him as someone who went to space.) Odds are good that you were also familiar with Tracy Hickman, co-author of the popular Dragonlance novels during the '80s. And if that sounds like two great tastes that taste great together, you'll be happy to know that Tracy Hickman has been announced as the lead story designer for Garriott's upcoming Shroud of the Avatar. Hickman's writing credits aside from the Dragonlance series include the Death Gate Cycle, the ongoing Dragonships series, and the online serial novel Dragon's Bard. There's no word on whether his frequent co-authors will be joining in on the writing duties as well, but even Hickman alone should make some old-school fantasy fans very happy about the direction of the upcoming game.
Richard Garriott explains why Shroud of the Avatar is on Kickstarter
Richard Garriott has been to space, but his upcoming game, Shroud of the Avatar, is not in space. It is on Kickstarter, and according to Garriott himself in a recent interview, that's because it allows him to release a game without oversight. Garriott claims that the unnamed games he's released to sub-par reception have been chiefly the result of publishers meddling with the finished product, whereas the games he has been allowed to finish his way have been classics. While the game is not explicitly tied to the Ultima franchise for copyright reasons, Garriott sees it as very much being in the spirit of the older games, since Ultima IX ended with the world more or less destroyed. He also discusses influences on the game world's design and how players can switch between single-player and online modes of operation without a problem. If you're looking forward to the game, you can get more details in the full interview.
Patch 3.2 bringing Strand of the Ancients coin toss
We mentioned this issue a while back -- since it was introduced to the game, Strand of the Ancients has started Alliance on attack first, and that's caused problems. Due to the way the map is set up (a back-and-forth attack and defend map), the team that starts attacking has an advantage in terms of farming honor -- they only have to play until the other team loses rather than having to keep up a defense the whole time. That means shorter battlegrounds for the Alliance, which means more honor overall for them.The problem was that Blizzard couldn't just flip a switch to randomize the battleground's spawn points: they were hard-coded into the moving ships that players appear on, so it took much more coding to use a coin-flip start. However Zarhym now confirms that the coin flip is coming to SotA. And though he didn't say when in the original post, the Patch 3.2 notes tell us that it's coming in that patch.Hopefully Blizzard will have learned their lesson for the Isle of Conquest -- although since it's closer to Alterac Valley from what we've heard, we probably won't have that asymmetrical issue, and both sides will be able to start with just as many advantages and disadvantages as the other.Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!
Randomizing the Strand of the Ancients spawn points
Strand of the Ancients is a battleground that's gotten relatively short shrift lately -- it came along into the game with the crown jewel of Wrath PvP so far, Wintergrasp, and while it's still frequented on honor weekends (it's one of the best ways to farm honor, actually) and for achievements, lots of players, specifically those on the Horde, aren't happy with it. Why? Because right now, Alliance always starts the battle on offense first. The battle is a regular attack-and-defend map, and Alliance reportedly has a "significant advantage" by beginning on the attack side: they only have to play offense for a few minutes, and then defend for the same amount of time, while Horde have to defend the whole first round and then attack if they want to win. Plus, the battleground doesn't always start full, which means whoever attacks first usually is fighting fewer defenders.So how hard would it be to throw a coin flip in there and randomize who starts first? The good news is that Blizzard is working on it, but the bad news is that it's taking longer than they thought. It's not as simple, unfortunately, as choosing a faction randomly -- there are apparently mechanics in the spawn points that make it difficult for them to randomize who shows up on the moving ships. Go figure? We've never understood how Blizzard's code works, and we're not starting now.But again: Zarhym says a fix is incoming in a future patch. So if you're Alliance and you want to do some honor farming, better start now.
