Crowfall

[Cervator]

So as usual there are some interesting MMOs floating around in crowdfunding land these days. Crowfall has stuck out to me, especially with their Kickstarter update today. Their angle is temporary campaign worlds with full PVP, VoxelFarm integration with destructible environments, and permanent resource-less housing worlds you build out with your winnings.

Honestly I haven't even paid attention to their races/classes much, I don't really care, all the fantasy MMOs are so similar there anyway

But the temporary campaign worlds stuck out as unusual, since often permanent sandboxy type worlds end up in a poor state like "explored" Minecraft worlds, or even overcrowded Ultimate Online servers in the old days when space for housing ran out. Yet completely instanced single player housing sucks too. Doesn't help much that you can invite a friend over to gape at your interior decorating skillzors.

With today's update they went into detail on the home worlds where each player essentially starts out with a mini Minecraft-like world they can customize at a high (terrain) and medium (structures) level. But furthermore you can join up in a single such world feudalism-style, swearing fealty to the lord or lady owning the holding (they call it kingdom, which is leading to lots of confusion - I'm attached to holdings!) or even join somebody at a lower level who got a province in said world to manage as their own. Everybody still has their own world if they want, or they can ignore it and just move stuff into somebody else's bigger world.

That is very similar to something I've wanted to achieve long-term with Terasology - organizing world holdings that way with NPCs starting out in charge if needed, players slowly taking over (and in turn get replaced by NPCs again if they go inactive). So I'm nerding out over it a little and wishing I could dedicate more time to finish everything logistics already so I could code content again

In the meantime I'm considering upping my standard "Interested in checking it out but will probably never get around to it" pledge to one of the 3-digit land holding head-start options so I'll actually be able to check out the system - since I'll never get around to it if I have to grind my way up to a holding size of interest. Could get me into the alpha as soon as late / after summer this year too if I go really nuts.

Anybody else pledging or interested in playing it in the future? I'll provide the overly expensive holding to get our guild started with some tax free benefits

 

[Skaldarnar]

I just had a look and I like the visual style of the game as much as their concept. I've never played an MMO before, probably due to the fact that you either have to play constantly to keep track of all features or all your friends will be way ahead of you. Do they say something about how players of different levels are going to interact/play together?

 

[Cervator]

I haven't noticed much on that topic and it may be too early to tell. Probably the main factor will be that they're following the EVE Online model with skill training, both active and passive, so there are no levels to arbitrarily elevate some players way beyond the reach of lower players akin to WoW. In EVE even a newbie with a week of skill training and a frigate can play crucial roles in PVP as the combat is far more about tactics and organizing than level or gear

I'd like to think they're going for that in a fantasy combat fashion somehow. It may be harder to pull off than in space combat where a lot of winning is about gaining a better position both in 3D space and preparedness.

In all honesty though I've barely thought about it, haha. I am way more interested in the campaign system and building stuff. Being able to reset worlds to start fresh with minimal items allowed in from your permanent stash should itself be a huge equalizer.

Still, again, like EVE it may well turn out to become a very group centric game with few deep options for solo or low scale PVP. PVE isn't much of a focus, probably more like a background thing to help slow players down in exploring new worlds. RP may be a bit of an option in some of the "home worlds" for just sort of hanging out and doing your thing.