warhorse
Latest
Crowdfund Bookie, winter quarter: Hibernation
The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the month and produces pretty charts for you to look at. Money spent on crowdfunded games dropped 51.1 percent in the three-month period of December 2013 through February 2014. In this winter quarter, 76 projects received a total of $6,138,890, which compares unfavorably to the combined $12,543,198 in funding for the fall quarter (September through November 2013). While the funding space squeaked by in December and took a nosedive in January, it gained a little ground in February in terms of dollars spent, with $2,961,953 pledged in that month alone, which stands well with other months we've tracked dating back to June 2013. The catch, and where the trend continues to be a concern, comes from the number of projects and backers overall. Only 16 projects were funded during February, and 20 in January. The average number of successful projects per month from June through December was just over 32, so roughly half the number of projects are being funded on Kickstarter and Indiegogo at this stage. One of February's few funded projects was the wildly successful Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Kingdom Come earned $1,842,218 thanks to 35,384 backers. Without that game's contributions, February would have amounted to $1,119,735 in pledges from 28,355 backers. Looking at January's figures as well, there's a clear downward trend in crowdfunding at the moment. Whether it was a lack of enticing projects, a stack of holiday bills or just the winter doldrums, something kept backers from adding their two cents to crowdfunding. The median, or middle points in the data set for the quarter point to a positively-skewed distribution as well, and gives a better indicator of how much projects actually earn when compared to mean averages. When comparing the median averages to the previous six months, we find that more backers (616 versus 542) are funding fewer projects, and at a lower spending amount ($18,087 versus $25,188). Unless the crowdfunding space has simply gone into hibernation and will return to life in the spring, the next few months may prove more difficult for project creators than in the past. Head past the break for a list of the quarter's top ten earners as well as a breakdown by genre.
Star Citizen devs mind-melding with Kingdom Come's Warhorse team
Star Citizen creator Chris Roberts has penned a new dev blog announcing Cloud Imperium's cooperation with fellow indie outfit Warhorse. Warhorse is currently building a single-player RPG called Kingdom Come: Deliverance that's set in medieval Europe, and Roberts was so impressed with the project that he both backed it himself and sought to exchange ideas with its developers. Both Star Citizen and Kingdom Come are built on the CryEngine, and Roberts says both dev teams will be collaborating going forward. "Star Citizen doesn't need peasants and knights," he explained, "but it does need a robust character creation system for the persistent universe. And that technology is exactly what Warhorse is building for the CryEngine.
Mafia designer announces Kingdom Come: Deliverance RPG for PC and next-gen
Warhorse Studios delivered a teaser trailer and name for its upcoming RPG today, now known as Kingdom Come: Deliverance. The indie Czech developer, founded in 2011 by Mafia and Mafia 2 designer Daniel Vávra, noted that the game is expected to arrive in 2015 for PC and unspecified next-gen consoles. Kingdom Come: Deliverance will take place in the "Holy Roman Empire during the late Middle Ages," in which players can engage in first-person hand-to-hand combat, sieges and large-scale battles. Unlike other games that draw inspiration from the era, Warhorse Studios promised "no magic, high fantasy or mythical overtones" in its description of the game, but will instead focus on "historically authentic characters, themes and warfare." Among those themes is the struggle for the right to sit on the throne and hold power over the kingdom, which will be central to the game's plot. The developer also recently issued a blog that described its lengthy trials in finding a suitable publisher for the open-world RPG and where it stands currently in its endeavors.
Warhorse Studios 'next-gen' tech video leaked
A video of Warhorse Studios' next-gen RPG that uses a modified version of CryEngine 3 leaked out recently. Even considering the "bootleg" feel of it, the video shows some impressive textures with murky, yet reflective water in the developer's introductory game.The video comes from a recent hour-long presentation at a small Czech gaming conference in Prague. Creative Director Dan Vavra clarified in a recent developer diary that the next-gen label is "somewhat misleading." The small demo was shown on a two-year-old laptop with a mobile GeForce 555M, or as Vavra described it: "Not exactly state-of-the-art PC or next gen Xbox." The area shown is 200 x 200 meters, and according to Vavra it "doesn't have the final lighting and there are no effects in it. It's simply an example of the environment."While the game is expected to run on next-gen consoles, Vavra sternly noted that the environment video is "not at all originally intended officially to support the claim that 'this is what next gen should look like.'"
Warhorse licenses CryEngine 3 for still-unannounced RPG jam
You remember Warhorse, right? The studio from Prague that's making that unannounced RPG for those unannounced next-gen consoles? Well it turns out the studio is employing Crytek's third CryEngine iteration for said unnamed project, according to a press release issued by Crytek earlier today.Warhorse exec producer Martin Klima explained his studio's logic behind employing CryEngine 3 by saying, "We looked at every major technology out there and CryEngine 3 suits our needs perfectly." The Warhorse folks didn't offer any more information about the RPG in production, unfortunately, and we're betting it'll be some time before we hear anything more solid on the seemingly very early in production game. Thankfully we've got these infinite dragons and quests to deal with in Skyrim in the meantime!
New Prague-based dev studio, Warhorse, is ready to rock your RPG world
Four eminent 2K Czech and Bohemia Interactive employees have split to form Warhorse, a new development studio in Prague, and are now working on a previously unannounced RPG. Mafia and Mafia II creator Dan Vávra is heading the team at Warhorse, co-founded with Martin Klíma, author of Dragon's Lair. Viktor Bocan, designer of Operation Flashpoint, and Mafia animator Zbynek Trávnivký complete the fearsome foursome.Combined, the Warhorse crew's games have sold more than 11 million copies. They are hiring now for work on this mysterious RPG, requesting people who are willing to move to Prague to work with talented, successful, laid-back developers, which we're sure will be nearly impossible to find.
WoW Rookie: Saddle up your mount at level 30
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic.UPDATE: Progress gallops forward and mount requirements have changed ... Visit our updated WoW Rookie mounts post for the latest mount information.Hitting level 30 is a major milestone in today's World of Warcraft: the level at which you get your mount. Up to this point, you've spent plenty of time hoofing it, getting to know the lay of the land. On the back of your trusty steed, you'll be able to zip across increasingly larger zones and quest areas in style. You'll start off on a standard ground mount, such as a Horse, Wolf or Kodo. Later, you can upgrade to faster versions of those creatures and eventually to mounts that can fly (in Burning Crusade and Wrath content).Mounts used to become available at level 40. Now that the game extends to level 80 and early character progression has been sped up, you get to speed up at an earlier level, too.
