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Has kickstarter actually produced any finished mmos yet?
Foomerang
Member UncommonPosts: 5,628
So many kickstarter mmos in development these days. Have any finished and are now live? If so, are they any good? Did they deliver what they promised? From my rudimentary research skills, I've seen a lot of great ideas and grand visions on kickstarter mmos but not really seen any come to complete fruition.
Comments
I think Repopulation, Gloria Victis, Shards Online and Pathfinder Online will all eventually be released and all will bring something new to the table. They are all in fairly open alpha states right now were outside people have been able to play.
I am not aware of any that have actually launched yet, but those 4 are worth following.
We decided to not do a kickstarter, and instead follow EVE´s model and just release with a small amount of people and hope they love the game and help promote it. The main thing you need KS for is to promote your game, as most of those 4 games above have shown, you can make a really high quality game without KS ( shards and Gloria both failed their KS but are both well into development anyway).
Lead developer of Holdpoint Online a PvE-only sandbox MMORPG. www.holdpoint-online.com Launching July, 2015
You can also check out:
TUG
http://youtu.be/cLq3g0bQSWo
and
PLANET EXPLORERS
http://youtu.be/4x6Ch3gJBq8
They're both on steam now (I think) and both well into development and playable. Kind-of a Change of paste from traditional offerings, but interesting.
Thanks for the info, both of you. I will do some recon on those released games.
Camelot Unchained is another one that is worth watching out for. They had a massive week of unveils including their backers playing with the internal testing build this past week and getting to see 9 of the races in action. Its not even in alpha state but it will be made.
Of your list I think The Repopulation will be the first out the door with Pathfinder and Shards not that long after. Granted that not that far after could still be a couple of years. Camelot Unchained is at least 2 year off as well. So yeah I have zero doubt some KS funded MMO's will hit the market, I just don't think the full launch of any of them is going to be anytime soon"ish".
no mmo, but the oculus rift started on kickstarter too i think
and you forgot to mention elite:dangerous under honorable mentions (also not yet released, but chances are very likely)
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
I apologize if I was unclear in my initial post. I wasnt really asking for upcoming mmos off kickstarter. Sorry to those of you who keep posting stuff like that heh.
Nope
so far they're all just " going to be good"
I understand. It leads me to a conclusion that I didnt really want to believe but yeah thats pretty much what I was thinking. I love the idea of kickstarter. And I like supporting great ideas. But unfortunately, ideas turn to gospel sometimes and forum wars are waged over games that are being funded by a "promotion platform".
I look forward to seeing amazing mmos coming from humble kickstarter beginnings.
Seems like most are always needing more funding, and pretty much all of them are at least a year behind where they originally projected being by now.
Personally I've made the personal decision that I threw away all the money I spent on kickstarter to con men and scammers.
I've decided crowd funding is nothing but a criminal enterprise most likely originally designed to launder money.
Any legitimate and solid business model does not have to come begging funding from the consumers.
If you have a solid and workable business model there are tons of banks and investors out there looking to make an investment or business loan. If the business model is too weak or non-existent, the managers are clueless, or have zero business experience then it ends up begging for " free " crowdfunding.
If there developers were even remotely legitimate they would be offering an investors return on our money rather that a T-shirt or in game decal.
Pretty much it. Nothing has been completed/released yet that I know of.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Kickstarter is ok in a couple situations. If you really have your game solidly developed and you have 2 years of production left, but you can show a solid game and say ´if we do this kickstarter we can knock a year off that development because some of us can quit our day jobs or we can hire more people´. I would gladly contribute to a kickstarter for a game that is already mostly finished in order to get it a little faster. Also, most of these types of kickstarters it is more like a pre-order because they usually give you the game as a reward anyway.
The other type that I mentioned is just kickstarters used for a game that is almost finished. They don´t need the money to finish the game, they need the money to buy advertising and promote the game. So much of this industry is inertia.. if you have a big launch, it generates buzz.. so while indy games can be made very cheaply if the devs are doing all the work... and they can complete the game. They do need money if they want to go for a big launch. But again, it should be almost like a pre-order where they are giving you the game as a reward for your donation at a similar price to what others get it for afterwards.
Lead developer of Holdpoint Online a PvE-only sandbox MMORPG. www.holdpoint-online.com Launching July, 2015
Well the "Kickstarter outpouring" started around 2012 and sadly decent MMO's aren't created in 2 years especially with the size of these indie teams with obvious funding issues.
Just a reminder for the few who want to understand the why instead of sarcastically spewing the why nots.
Not so far and there are many disasters on the horizon.
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Greed Monger - Seems to be dead and there are no news or ALPHA/BETA which was promised more than a year ago. I feel bad for people that paid $500 or more for virtual land and i feel bad for MarkeeDragon who promoted it and probably invested too.
Markeedragon Interview
Kickstarter
----
The Repopulation - This game had TWO Kickstarter campaigns and still looks horrible. At least there is a working Alpha and you can actually "play" it (so i am told). It is far from finished and i hope it eventually will be polished and finished.
Kickstarter #1
Kickstarter #2
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Shroud of the Avatar - While i love Ultima, this game is a joke. Made with the Unity engine consisting of tiny zones, no open world, bad graphics and animations, it all looks rather amateurish to me and nothing like i expected from Lord British himself. Very disappointing.
Kickstarter
----
Those are just a few, but i have no hope for any of the others to be actually good or finished ever.
I don't believe they can really be made for less than this, so while SC looks to be properly funded, not so sure about most others.
At best most will probably be of the quality along the lines of MO or Darkfall, which many find unacceptable.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Lead developer of Holdpoint Online a PvE-only sandbox MMORPG. www.holdpoint-online.com Launching July, 2015
Funny how defensive people become and 90% of posts here fail to answer op question.
Nope, none released yet. But like someone said before, MMO takes at least 4 years to be completed, while Kickstarter has been around since 2009, and MMO ideas started appearing there much later.
That being said, let's be honest. Some of those games will come out, but I wouldn't count for any quality experience. Those games feel like they are trying hard to please the selected few complainers from mmorpg.com.
I'm not familiar with any successfully funded MMO on Kickstarter where the MMO wasn't already at least 2-4 years into development.
The only one I can think of might be RG's project, but they seem like they were already reasonably into development as the Kickstarter video shows playable content.
If a KS campaign got funded and there wasn't already a couple years of development to show for it, I am curious what kind of approach they used to get an in-concept MMO project funded. Do you have a link to any of those?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I'm also looking forward to Shroud of the Avatar.
Loktofiet, a good example would be Camelot Unchained. The kickstarter was launched from just an idea with no screenshots or videos to supplement the campaign.
Star Citizen by far has to be the largest funded by using Kickstarter as well.
I guess time will tell if all these mmo's will be a success starting up this way.
Camelot Unchained had an entire team working on the project and prototypes of several systems already publicly available at the time of the KS campaign. They also said Camelot Unchained is launching in 2015. Either they did have a good bit of development time under their belt, or they'll be the first ones to make or break your statement that a decent MMO isn't created in 2 years. Looking forward to the outcome of that.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I think that not having PVE probably save a lot of work, I consider CU more like a fantasy PS2 than an mmo myself.
There have been no real finished MMOs launched to my knowledge.
Further to that the majority of them look like absolute turd. I honestly don't see how people rave on about Camelot Unchained or The Repopulation - they look like games from 2006. Aside from Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen, which are really backed by lots of company money and outside investments, the rest of the indie-generation MMOs look like games with ideas that will never be able to achieve.
Yeah, graphics aren't everything but tech is. If your tech is poor then your game mechanics will be crap which means your gameplay will be mediocre. Couple that with low resources and your animations and art are also going to end up being poor.
You wouldn't be able to make a great car with a budget of $2million so why try to make a great MMO with one? Just can't be done in today's market in my opinion.
That's a fairly naive view of the business world Nowadays just about every major breakthrough and tech company started by getting funding from someone. Whether friends and family, venture capitalists, or crowd funding.
There have been numerous successes, and several products that have been brought to market. And there are products that did not make it. That isn't because the persons that ran these ventures were con men.
Something like an MMO is an extremely difficult product to develop and bring to market by a non-professional team of many persons. So it's going to be an uphill climb from the very beginning, regardless of how wonderful the ideas and concepts are.
If you have ever taken the time and the risk to start a company with an idea you would perhaps understand. My thinking is that you have never done this, and speak from a position of ignorance on the subject.
Without crowdfunding, many projects would never get far enough to attract Venture Capitalist investors, and certainly never far enough to secure a loan.
If the prospect of paying money for the development of something you want, and have that be brought to market, is a concept that you aren't comfortable with, then say so. A t-shirt, special mention, etc. aren't the reason you are paying a mere 10 or 15 usd. It is to get the finished product, eventually, which otherwise would never get made.
Don't crap on the people who have the passion and drive to try to make their own dreams a reality, and disparage them by labelling them all as con men.
It will be interesting in the next couple years to see the inaugural class of kickstarter mmos hit the scene. Wonder if it will make any waves, or at least warrant the waves they have already created.