A lot of this discussion has come up recently regarding the cash shop of New World, but those same arguments and questions apply here as well.
If your game has a level progression that is irrelevant, and it can be said of your game that "the endgame is all that matters" or "the game doesn't begin till max level," if those things can be said, why even force the player to advance in the first place? Why not just scrap leveling entirely and make a game about endgame. Perhaps RPG is not the correct genre for your game if leveling up and "the journey" do not matter and it's just a race to endgame before you can have fun. Perhaps remove leveling, remove levels entirely and just start everyone at the point where the fun begins.
Selling boosts on day 1 of the release of a brand new video game, to me (and also to a lot of other people who hold the same opinion as me) makes it seem as if the devs are admitting defeat. As if the devs are admitting that their game is shit until you reach cap. Admitting that their game is just padded out with meaningless grind to improve their engagement metrics.
They are selling leveling boosts? Already?
PSN: Reaper_Stragint, Steam: DoublePitstoChesty
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
A lot of this discussion has come up recently regarding the cash shop of New World, but those same arguments and questions apply here as well.
If your game has a level progression that is irrelevant, and it can be said of your game that "the endgame is all that matters" or "the game doesn't begin till max level," if those things can be said, why even force the player to advance in the first place? Why not just scrap leveling entirely and make a game about endgame. Perhaps RPG is not the correct genre for your game if leveling up and "the journey" do not matter and it's just a race to endgame before you can have fun. Perhaps remove leveling, remove levels entirely and just start everyone at the point where the fun begins.
Selling boosts on day 1 of the release of a brand new video game, to me (and also to a lot of other people who hold the same opinion as me) makes it seem as if the devs are admitting defeat. As if the devs are admitting that their game is shit until you reach cap. Admitting that their game is just padded out with meaningless grind to improve their engagement metrics.
They are selling leveling boosts? Already?
Taken from the launch email I received:
Day 1 they are selling boost packs that bump you to level 25.
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StragintDo Not GiftAlways DeclinesRegistered Userregular
A lot of this discussion has come up recently regarding the cash shop of New World, but those same arguments and questions apply here as well.
If your game has a level progression that is irrelevant, and it can be said of your game that "the endgame is all that matters" or "the game doesn't begin till max level," if those things can be said, why even force the player to advance in the first place? Why not just scrap leveling entirely and make a game about endgame. Perhaps RPG is not the correct genre for your game if leveling up and "the journey" do not matter and it's just a race to endgame before you can have fun. Perhaps remove leveling, remove levels entirely and just start everyone at the point where the fun begins.
Selling boosts on day 1 of the release of a brand new video game, to me (and also to a lot of other people who hold the same opinion as me) makes it seem as if the devs are admitting defeat. As if the devs are admitting that their game is shit until you reach cap. Admitting that their game is just padded out with meaningless grind to improve their engagement metrics.
They are selling leveling boosts? Already?
Taken from the launch email I received:
Day 1 they are selling boost packs that bump you to level 25.
That is impressive. I just checked and I have it. What even is max level? I don't think I've ever seen a company offer a level boost day 1. That feels like such a dumb thing to do.
PSN: Reaper_Stragint, Steam: DoublePitstoChesty
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
I said before how the NPE was bad. Selling boosts makes me think they agree and never solved it. The leveling process is also a 4-6 hour process, to give you an idea of the time you are saving
Leveling up was always where I learned to play the character. Yeah, I suppose I could learn at max level, too, but....
You don't really learn a whole lot. The mobs are not challenging, have like one move beside auto attack, and can be killed in droves. So leveling doesn't give you much to learn as fat as how your class operates beyond some basic "okay so this is an aoe and this is a channel" type things
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StragintDo Not GiftAlways DeclinesRegistered Userregular
Leveling up was always where I learned to play the character. Yeah, I suppose I could learn at max level, too, but....
You don't really learn a whole lot. The mobs are not challenging, have like one move beside auto attack, and can be killed in droves. So leveling doesn't give you much to learn as fat as how your class operates beyond some basic "okay so this is an aoe and this is a channel" type things
I mean, that doesn't really sound like a good review of gameplay if I'm being honest. I haven't played for a few months but I don't remember it being that boring and unfun.
PSN: Reaper_Stragint, Steam: DoublePitstoChesty
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
Leveling up was always where I learned to play the character. Yeah, I suppose I could learn at max level, too, but....
You don't really learn a whole lot. The mobs are not challenging, have like one move beside auto attack, and can be killed in droves. So leveling doesn't give you much to learn as fat as how your class operates beyond some basic "okay so this is an aoe and this is a channel" type things
That sounds like BDO which I absolutely could not stand.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I like the leveling system. About 3 hours from character creation to max level, it's just enough time to retrain my hands to the new class keys and get a feel for how it plays. You don't have to do it if you don't want to, you can sacrifice items for xp instead. The free leveling thing is a trap. Save it for when you have a better vessel that takes longer to level.
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
I feel like the overall impression with the fact its a B2P sub with intense cash shop is that they have given up, and are either trying to recoup losses, get a ton of money to give it another shot, or get as much as they can before everything falls apart.
It absolutely looked like the game was rushed to release all of the sudden. If they had said this was just early access it would be one thing (which if they did, yikes). But going full on release when it seemed like there was still a lot of issues with performance and overall direction? It seemed kneejerk.
That was what I was reading at least. I am not giving it a shot after the brief preview showed the game was unplayable for me. I can't pay money for that. I mean, apparently my 6600K processor that runs almost anything else I play is the problem, but yeah it plays everything else I try even if I have to adjust settings. Except Crowfall at ANY settings.
Oh well, I was cautiously optimistic so no loss on my end. This could have been something I was looking for, but I think I am done looking for anything MMO related. When I can stop wanting to play WOW I am out.
Leveling up was always where I learned to play the character. Yeah, I suppose I could learn at max level, too, but....
You don't really learn a whole lot. The mobs are not challenging, have like one move beside auto attack, and can be killed in droves. So leveling doesn't give you much to learn as fat as how your class operates beyond some basic "okay so this is an aoe and this is a channel" type things
I mean, that doesn't really sound like a good review of gameplay if I'm being honest. I haven't played for a few months but I don't remember it being that boring and unfun.
The gameplay isn't, no. The leveling experience, however...
Or perhaps it won't be as such now that it is released? If higher pops means world skirmishes happen more often, then leveling could totally be a learning experience. But then, so would battlegrounds or something similar.
Just to add some context to the leveling boosts: They're purchasable in-game for in-game gold, I think it's like 40k which is not a tiny sum but it seems easy enough to make. The idea is you play through the tutorial once with one character ever then boost others. The core of the game is at "max level", they just use the lower levels to slowly introduce skills etc but once you know how the game works the whole thing is a timewaster. Also VIPs get free unlimited respecs and those same boosts. Anyway, my point is yeah there's gonna be boosts but they basically hand them away like candy because yeah, they never made the tutorial section good.
I don't think the game is terrible, there's still some interesting ideas in there that it looks like they did a decent job on, but honestly I have a hard time getting over the combat. I've tried magic users and melee now and all of it feels incredibly floaty. None of the abilities feel good to use. There's a very noticeable delay from when you "hit" an enemy to when it says you damage them so everything feels disconnected. I also don't know that it does anything as good or better than other games? I might keep trying it out since I've made it out of the tutorial and into the real meat of the game, but I'd have a hard time recommending it to anyone so far.
It has that weird freeze frame feel from like GG or KoF, when you hit somebody, yeah.
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StragintDo Not GiftAlways DeclinesRegistered Userregular
Honestly, saying the game doesn't get good until reaching max level is not a great comment. They really should have just removed levels and given players other ways to generate skill points or something.
Regardless of the games current state, I dropped $250 on a backer bundle like 5 years ago so I'm gonna be playing at some point this week so I'll get some first hand experience on the fully released product.
PSN: Reaper_Stragint, Steam: DoublePitstoChesty
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
For context, the level softcap is around 30 and it takes a few hours to get there - especially if you have a stash of sacrifice items from leveling previous characters.
Right now I think I've played about all I can until they add more content or something changes... I played for around 8 hours in the last 2 days and I'm kind of done. I dislike grinding for incremental number increases. The crafting seems like it will need a large network of friends or a guild all churning out raw and refined materials for one another. Combat is not very interesting - especially not in PvP where you really notice the animations not matching up with the actual attacks, ranges are imprecise and many abilities just plainly don't work or get you stuck in the world.
I'm not sure why they released the game? It feels early beta at best.
Edit: Mostly it feels like the people who made Shadowbane decided to try again while learning nothing from the first attempt. Which is appropriate, considering this is a new studio made up of the same people who developed Shadowbane.
dispatch.o on
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
Pretty sure they released it to get money because they are out. Not much of a choice there.
I still hold Crowfall in high regard being a Kickstarter MMO that managed to get something playable that actually at least is a functional MMO. Like, the content not being enjoyable or plentiful is what it is. But it seems like almost all kickstarter MMOs never get to the point of something playable, or if they do its not a functional MMO and usually is just some kind of online engine with assets.
The leveling experience is still really bad. It is a chain of fetch quests, A to B quest chains, and constant backtracking. The enemies are basic and uninteresting to fight.
The leveling experience is still really bad. It is a chain of fetch quests, A to B quest chains, and constant backtracking. The enemies are basic and uninteresting to fight.
Just, use your tome and save yourself the time.
Despite my criticism of the game, the pace of leveling 1-25 doesn't bother me. There's actually a lot of information baked in on how to craft, what mounts are, how disciplines work, etc etc.
1-30 is basically a tutorial and I think that was one of the better decisions they made.
+1
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StragintDo Not GiftAlways DeclinesRegistered Userregular
Knowing the real meat of the game doesn't apparently start until max level has made leveling feeling extremely tedious. I've gotten to level 10 on a Druid so far.
I also finally got all my backer rewards. I don't remember but the only place to use parcels and build stuff is the eternal kingdom, right?
PSN: Reaper_Stragint, Steam: DoublePitstoChesty
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
There are definitely things to work towards on character improvement.
The crafting system isn't bad, but it's exceptionality obtuse with the belts/pouches and half a dozen different screens to make one item. There's no good reason to require that you make 8 component ingredients by hand before you combine the finished product.
Games solved this shit 20 years ago. It doesn't make the crafting system deeper, it wears out my goddamn mouse.
Also, they have added a a 10 day period free trial for those who want to test the game before playing. You can now buy the full version of the game for $15.
How's the population been post release? Just the other day I was reading an article, complaining that in the final beta they barely ever came across PVP until the end event and were worried about the release population.
Things in EVE are getting shitty and we're looking for parachute games. What's the state of play with large groups? Can Crowfall support large scale PvP at all?
I leveled up to 30 and I had a really good time. They definitely patched the game up good and everything missing from the launch is better and then some.
They added a 25v25 match that requires a handshake. I haven't played the PVP, but I have watched players on twitch play it, and it looks good.
I hope there is more influx of players, because honestly, the game is a lot of fun. Definitely worth the 15 dollars to buy, and then the VIP when you're in the mood to play.
Over the past few months, we’ve been evaluating the current state of Crowfall. One of the biggest challenges has been the sheer amount of development effort required to build new campaigns and keep the game running daily. In order to refocus our efforts from live operations to development, we have decided to take the Crowfall live service offline for the time being.
On November 22, 2022, at 11 AM CST, Crowfall will go dark, and the game servers will be unavailable. Until the service goes offline, take this time to try out all of the cool buildings, mounts, and emotes for free in the Crowfall store.
We're going to use this time to map out the future of the game. We have yet to determine what that looks like, but we are investing in and rethinking every part of the game - from the core technology and tools to art, design, and gameplay. Nothing is off the table.
Game's... dead? Sort of? Maybe? I've never heard of a temporary shutdown of an MMO.
I have my doubts this will ever come back.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
They tried to combine Shadowbane and SWG, but largely managed to take only the most frustrating aspects of those (large guilds in SB monopolizing resources, and large guilds in SWG being required to reliably craft anything high end).
The "no permanent world" aspect also killed the unique draw of SB, and replaced it with an uninteresting treadmill. Another poor decision was moving away from SB's idea of "most class and race combinations are possible". Like I think Minotaurs in SB and has fewest class options at like 7, meanwhile for Crowfall, the largest class options had something like 5? Reducing the number of classed and also moving to an old-WoW skill tree system did no favors either, considering the nostalgia they were trying to recapture, and thus the players they were trying to attract.
Then with the crafting side, the prospecting was gone, the process was tedious, the UI never felt like it moved beyond "functional beta", and you needed multiple mules, and even then, still a large group feeding you mats so you could just keep pulling the lever in an attempt to craft setting with good experimental points.
They self-selected for a small pop, but still tried to carve out a large market.
I never bought the game, but I followed the development and I read/watched a whole lot of content about it, including tuning into some live Twitch streams to watch people play it in real time (which I generally never do). It did not appear (to me (from an outsiders perspective)) that they ever managed to deliver a fun game. It looked like big ambition and a bunch of systems that were majorly undercooked and didn't work together to form a coherent whole.
Anyway, yeah. Bringing the servers down sounds like "Dead Game" to me. They say they're assessing the future. But I can't see that future ending any other way than a total and complete death rattle.
I will also say that I'm still hopeful that one day in the future, there will be a game that has a dynamic player driven economy like SWG, but without the pitfalls of that game.
I still play WoW, which the king of Theme Park MMOs. But what I really want is to move away from Theme Park and more into sandbox, where the power is in the hands of the players. But the problem is, so far most sandbox style MMOs have been utter disasters for one reason or another.
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They are selling leveling boosts? Already?
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
Taken from the launch email I received:
Day 1 they are selling boost packs that bump you to level 25.
That is impressive. I just checked and I have it. What even is max level? I don't think I've ever seen a company offer a level boost day 1. That feels like such a dumb thing to do.
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
You don't really learn a whole lot. The mobs are not challenging, have like one move beside auto attack, and can be killed in droves. So leveling doesn't give you much to learn as fat as how your class operates beyond some basic "okay so this is an aoe and this is a channel" type things
I mean, that doesn't really sound like a good review of gameplay if I'm being honest. I haven't played for a few months but I don't remember it being that boring and unfun.
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
That sounds like BDO which I absolutely could not stand.
pleasepaypreacher.net
It absolutely looked like the game was rushed to release all of the sudden. If they had said this was just early access it would be one thing (which if they did, yikes). But going full on release when it seemed like there was still a lot of issues with performance and overall direction? It seemed kneejerk.
That was what I was reading at least. I am not giving it a shot after the brief preview showed the game was unplayable for me. I can't pay money for that. I mean, apparently my 6600K processor that runs almost anything else I play is the problem, but yeah it plays everything else I try even if I have to adjust settings. Except Crowfall at ANY settings.
Oh well, I was cautiously optimistic so no loss on my end. This could have been something I was looking for, but I think I am done looking for anything MMO related. When I can stop wanting to play WOW I am out.
The gameplay isn't, no. The leveling experience, however...
Or perhaps it won't be as such now that it is released? If higher pops means world skirmishes happen more often, then leveling could totally be a learning experience. But then, so would battlegrounds or something similar.
I don't think the game is terrible, there's still some interesting ideas in there that it looks like they did a decent job on, but honestly I have a hard time getting over the combat. I've tried magic users and melee now and all of it feels incredibly floaty. None of the abilities feel good to use. There's a very noticeable delay from when you "hit" an enemy to when it says you damage them so everything feels disconnected. I also don't know that it does anything as good or better than other games? I might keep trying it out since I've made it out of the tutorial and into the real meat of the game, but I'd have a hard time recommending it to anyone so far.
Regardless of the games current state, I dropped $250 on a backer bundle like 5 years ago so I'm gonna be playing at some point this week so I'll get some first hand experience on the fully released product.
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
Sure did. The new progression system that replaced it is Disciplines: https://crowfall.com/en-US/news/articles/december-live-stream
I thought I had played this year and saw the skill try but I guess it was farther back than I thought.
I'm glad they removed. Like the article mentioned it would really screw over new players.
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
Kept seeing a notice when trying to loot that loot goes to the top contributor.
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
Right now I think I've played about all I can until they add more content or something changes... I played for around 8 hours in the last 2 days and I'm kind of done. I dislike grinding for incremental number increases. The crafting seems like it will need a large network of friends or a guild all churning out raw and refined materials for one another. Combat is not very interesting - especially not in PvP where you really notice the animations not matching up with the actual attacks, ranges are imprecise and many abilities just plainly don't work or get you stuck in the world.
I'm not sure why they released the game? It feels early beta at best.
Edit: Mostly it feels like the people who made Shadowbane decided to try again while learning nothing from the first attempt. Which is appropriate, considering this is a new studio made up of the same people who developed Shadowbane.
I still hold Crowfall in high regard being a Kickstarter MMO that managed to get something playable that actually at least is a functional MMO. Like, the content not being enjoyable or plentiful is what it is. But it seems like almost all kickstarter MMOs never get to the point of something playable, or if they do its not a functional MMO and usually is just some kind of online engine with assets.
The leveling experience is still really bad. It is a chain of fetch quests, A to B quest chains, and constant backtracking. The enemies are basic and uninteresting to fight.
Just, use your tome and save yourself the time.
Despite my criticism of the game, the pace of leveling 1-25 doesn't bother me. There's actually a lot of information baked in on how to craft, what mounts are, how disciplines work, etc etc.
1-30 is basically a tutorial and I think that was one of the better decisions they made.
I also finally got all my backer rewards. I don't remember but the only place to use parcels and build stuff is the eternal kingdom, right?
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
I think I'm gonna work on getting higher grade vessals
The crafting system isn't bad, but it's exceptionality obtuse with the belts/pouches and half a dozen different screens to make one item. There's no good reason to require that you make 8 component ingredients by hand before you combine the finished product.
Games solved this shit 20 years ago. It doesn't make the crafting system deeper, it wears out my goddamn mouse.
Also, they have added a a 10 day period free trial for those who want to test the game before playing. You can now buy the full version of the game for $15.
They added a 25v25 match that requires a handshake. I haven't played the PVP, but I have watched players on twitch play it, and it looks good.
I hope there is more influx of players, because honestly, the game is a lot of fun. Definitely worth the 15 dollars to buy, and then the VIP when you're in the mood to play.
That answers that one, I suppose.
Game's... dead? Sort of? Maybe? I've never heard of a temporary shutdown of an MMO.
I have my doubts this will ever come back.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
They tried to combine Shadowbane and SWG, but largely managed to take only the most frustrating aspects of those (large guilds in SB monopolizing resources, and large guilds in SWG being required to reliably craft anything high end).
The "no permanent world" aspect also killed the unique draw of SB, and replaced it with an uninteresting treadmill. Another poor decision was moving away from SB's idea of "most class and race combinations are possible". Like I think Minotaurs in SB and has fewest class options at like 7, meanwhile for Crowfall, the largest class options had something like 5? Reducing the number of classed and also moving to an old-WoW skill tree system did no favors either, considering the nostalgia they were trying to recapture, and thus the players they were trying to attract.
Then with the crafting side, the prospecting was gone, the process was tedious, the UI never felt like it moved beyond "functional beta", and you needed multiple mules, and even then, still a large group feeding you mats so you could just keep pulling the lever in an attempt to craft setting with good experimental points.
They self-selected for a small pop, but still tried to carve out a large market.
I never bought the game, but I followed the development and I read/watched a whole lot of content about it, including tuning into some live Twitch streams to watch people play it in real time (which I generally never do). It did not appear (to me (from an outsiders perspective)) that they ever managed to deliver a fun game. It looked like big ambition and a bunch of systems that were majorly undercooked and didn't work together to form a coherent whole.
Anyway, yeah. Bringing the servers down sounds like "Dead Game" to me. They say they're assessing the future. But I can't see that future ending any other way than a total and complete death rattle.
I still play WoW, which the king of Theme Park MMOs. But what I really want is to move away from Theme Park and more into sandbox, where the power is in the hands of the players. But the problem is, so far most sandbox style MMOs have been utter disasters for one reason or another.