Mark Jacobs-Camelot Unchained Design Principles

[tboxx]

Mark Jacobs - Co-Founder of Mythic talks about his new MMO project and its design principles http://citystateentertainment.com/camelotunchained/. Camelot Unchained - RvR focused game- Little PvE- Fast lvling- A lot of Character Choices- The whole game is going to mainly be in the RvR area it appears. I like his statements about we are making a niche game if you don't like it that is ok. Some of the stuff will be wait and see in terms of how it actually plays out.

[Callan S.]

Seems what I'd call simulationist, as in its about people who want a game a certain way - and having it a certain way is what's fun for them, rather than that particular way as a game being fun for them (stuff like the no markers for quests is an example - yes, they'll get lost and waste their gaming time - but upholding the idea of no quest markers is what they think is fun for them)

I'm not really sure of the value of upholding such values just in itself for its own sake.

[hallsofvallhalla]

i feel like its a play on Dark age of Camelot which was RVR as well. I actually like the idea as I loved that part of the game.

[tboxx]

Seems what I'd call simulationist, as in its about people who want a game a certain way - and having it a certain way is what's fun for them, rather than that particular way as a game being fun for them (stuff like the no markers for quests is an example - yes, they'll get lost and waste their gaming time - but upholding the idea of no quest markers is what they think is fun for them)

I'm not really sure of the value of upholding such values just in itself for its own sake.

Interesting Point Callan - First, as a counter point to your marker issue, getting lost is a Con but a Pro would be increased immersion a player feels.

Secondly, I think a good part of the feature set would just be more fun for a player and not because the player has got it stuck in his head that it is more fun this way when in actuality it is not. (see your example about getting lost) For example, I don't like PvE his game would be more fun for me.

[tboxx]

i feel like its a play on Dark age of Camelot which was RVR as well. I actually like the idea as I loved that part of the game.

Its very much Inspired by Dark Age of Camelot. Its not DAOC 2 as he stated. They are definitely banking on DAOC fans and Mark Jacobs name to pull a good sum from their announced Kickstarter campaign in March. I would be surprised if it doesn't go above 1 mil.

[Callan S.]

Interesting Point Callan - First, as a counter point to your marker issue, getting lost is a Con but a Pro would be increased immersion a player feels.

Perhaps if someone logs what they do while being lost and the fun they are getting out of it, then it'd show the kind of fun they are consistantly getting out of it.

[Jackolantern]

Interesting Point Callan - First, as a counter point to your marker issue, getting lost is a Con but a Pro would be increased immersion a player feels.

Perhaps if someone logs what they do while being lost and the fun they are getting out of it, then it'd show the kind of fun they are consistantly getting out of it.

I think it also depends on what you do while looking. If you made a game world with a plethora of small interaction points hidden all through the world, where players could see something occur between NPCs, find small tasks for unique rewards, etc., then I think it would make a lot of sense to remove the quest markers. Make players stop and smell the roses, so to speak. If they are constantly finding interesting things to do that flesh out the world while looking for a quest target, that is a good thing. But I don't think you would want to remove them in a game like WoW, where as the tens of thousands of quests are basically all of the content, all the quest givers are in hub towns, etc. Questing is the same as killing monsters in most modern MMOs, and you would not purposely want to slow down their player's progression to make them feel like they have stopped in their tracks. In WoW, the world is essentially dead outside of the quest system, and getting lost in the world between quests is not fun.

EDIT: Said "in older MMOs" when it should have been "in modern MMOs". Oops!

[Callan S.]

Yeah, but does that raise the question that actually the player wants something else other than quests and quests are in the way - take minecraft - who is in the game with a yellow question mark above their head saying 'build me a castle!'? No one, yet people love to build a castle - the interaction points you describe, Jack, remind me of minecrafts interaction. Indeed in wurm online I think you can build houses and shape the earth somewhat.

[Jackolantern]

True, but Minecraft is hard to compare to an MMO. It is really its own beast. But I understand what you mean. I surely want something beyond endless quest after endless quest. Heck, I used to enjoy endless mob camping with pick-up groups in FFXI more than I enjoyed solo quest grinding in modern MMOs.