Dark Age of Camelot lead designer crowdfunding new MMORPG

Gosh, the name Dark Age of Camelot still holds an awful lot of weight. Mark Jacobs, lead designer of the MMORPG and once co-founder of its developer Mythic, launched a crowdfunding campaign for a new realm vs. realm MMO on Tuesday, and it's going swimmingly. Jacobs's new venture City State Entertainment is looking for a whopping $2,000,000 to make Camelot Unchained, which may seem awfully ambitious but pledges passed $500,000 in only eight hours. Goodness!

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Gosh, the name Dark Age of Camelot still holds an awful lot of weight. Mark Jacobs, lead designer of the MMORPG and once co-founder of its developer Mythic, launched a crowdfunding campaign for a new realm vs. realm MMO on Tuesday, and it's going swimmingly. Jacobs's new venture City State Entertainment is looking for a whopping $2,000,000 to make Camelot Unchained, which may seem awfully ambitious but pledges passed $500,000 in only eight hours. Goodness!

The Kickstarter campaign explains that Camelot Unchained is to be a subscription MMORPG focused on server vs. server war. It's a post-apocalyptic affair, only the apocalypse is a rift which floods our world with fantasy legends and nasties.

CSE says the "three main pillars of gameplay" are crafting, realm vs. realm competition, and housing. You see, all items are made and sold by players, who can set up stalls. Camelot Unchained will reward no experience or loot for PvE, so you'll need to kill some men and buy items from others to get anywhere. As for housing, players can build structures from houses and mines to fortifications. How all very old-school!

"In the rush to cash in on the WoW phenomenon, publishers/designers tried to simply 'out-WoW WoW', leading to most MMORPGs becoming more risk-averse, more 'casual player'-focused, and overall, less challenging," CSE says. "This produced, among other things, a loss of the pride and sense of accomplishment that came from succeeding in the older, more difficult titles."

So there you'll be, fighting, capturing and crafting to progress yourself and help the war.

You can't make a big fancy MMORPG for only $2 million, of course, so Jacobs will chip in another two cool millions of his own money if the Kickstarter is funded. Which still doesn't seem like very much money for a game of such scale, but there you go. It is quite focused, though.

Pledging at least $25 will get you a digital copy of the finished game, tentatively slated to launch in December 2015, and one month's free subscription. Fancier and more expensive pledges include earlier and earlier beta access, a cloth map, in-game items, name reservation, and other MMO-y doodads.

Hit the official site for more, and peep this pitch video:

From The Chatty
  • reply
    April 4, 2013 7:30 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Dark Age of Camelot lead designer crowdfunding new MMORPG.

    Gosh, the name Dark Age of Camelot still holds an awful lot of weight. Mark Jacobs, lead designer of the MMORPG and once co-founder of its developer Mythic, launched a crowdfunding campaign for a new realm vs. realm MMO on Tuesday, and it's going swimmingly. Jacobs's new venture City State Entertainment is looking for a whopping $2,000,000 to make Camelot Unchained, which may seem awfully ambitious but pledges passed $500,000 in only eight hours. Goodness!

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      April 4, 2013 8:43 AM

      I backed this game. I think DAOC was better than most of the MMO's I have ever played. The rock, scissors, paper element to DAOC really worked in the RvR realms and I remember having great fun with the keep sieges. The Midguard Thane was of special remembrance to me as well. Really fun class to play.

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        April 4, 2013 10:07 AM

        Hello fellow Thane brother!

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        April 4, 2013 10:08 AM

        I loved that game even though I was a Hib.

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          April 4, 2013 10:13 AM

          you dirty hib bastages

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            April 4, 2013 10:32 AM

            the only thing I hated were those OP Alb Inf.
            Stealth and 2x the skill points. In the wrong hands, one could shank an entire group and walk away mostly unharmed.

            I miss my Thane and Warden. =(

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      April 4, 2013 9:53 AM

      Kickstarter is really starting to feel like the Choose Your Own CE Bundle way to sell games. We're basically paying a premium to pre-pre-order a game that comes with CE style stuff.

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        April 4, 2013 10:01 AM

        sure, if you back status quo shit from people who probably could successfully pitch this to a publisher somewhere. The only games I've backed are the types I haven't had an opportunity to preorder for decades.

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      April 4, 2013 10:03 AM

      If someone would come out to remake EQ1 in a modern engine and some updated MMO mechanics while keeping the important ones intact/classic, I would pay 10000000000000000000 dollars. SPREAD THE WORD.

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        April 4, 2013 10:19 AM

        EQNext might be like that, supposed to be more oldschool focused than theme park.

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      April 4, 2013 10:07 AM

      Meh, they should dump the housing feature immediately. Haven't they learned that that's a really dumb feature that nobody needs?

      Also, having a dedicated crafting class sounds like a shit idea.

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      April 4, 2013 10:25 AM

      I am really looking forward to this - I loved DAoC and want to see a return to community-driven gameplay and RvR. Chipped in my $250.

      See you on the battlefields!

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      April 4, 2013 10:31 AM

      There is absolutely no way they can fund this with that small of an investment.

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        April 4, 2013 10:32 AM

        Supposedly Jacobs will toss in another 2 million if they meet the goal. And I think they are aiming at a smaller niche audience so might not have to have as big a development, little to no PVE so no need to create that content.

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        April 5, 2013 3:21 PM

        MJ is throwing in 2Mil of his own cash and he has investors waiting for the kickstarter.....read up before you put things down.

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          April 6, 2013 6:15 PM

          I know, right? It's actually outlined in the embedded video, even.

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      April 4, 2013 10:37 AM

      Can't wait for the testing to begin! Woot!

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      April 4, 2013 10:39 AM

      I've back this! I'm very much looking forward to it!

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        April 4, 2013 10:45 AM

        Me too... Looking forward to participating in the dev process as much as eventually playing the game.

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      April 4, 2013 10:45 AM

      I backed this too, many of us have been waiting for this day to come, please consider supporting it!

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      April 4, 2013 11:29 AM

      Man that's gotta sting Richard Garriot a bit.

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        April 4, 2013 11:48 AM

        Na, different kinds of games. And Shroud of the Avatar passed 1.4 million this morning, they are doing well.

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          April 4, 2013 12:24 PM

          yeah but his stretch goals went to 2.5 million, posted just a few days ago near as i can tell. He honestly expected to blow everything out of the water with his kickstarter just because he's lord british.

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            April 4, 2013 1:35 PM

            That dude seems like he likes to smell his own farts too much. He gets no money from me.

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              April 4, 2013 2:03 PM

              but for 10k you get a tour of his house*! *airfare/hotel/transportation not included

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      April 4, 2013 11:46 AM

      I backed this game. I was a proud (if glowy) Hibernian in DAOC. I'm really excited about Camelot Unchained.

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      April 4, 2013 12:03 PM

      Neat. This might be the first thing like this I buy into. I really liked DAoC, despite the fact that my Lurikeen Nightshade may have been the weakest character in the game. :D

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      April 4, 2013 12:06 PM

      I was a huge fan of DAoC, but I just can't get myself to subscribe to a game anymore. I fully understand how an MMO works and why it's needed, I am just personally done with subs after many years of paying for WoW.

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        April 4, 2013 1:36 PM

        I don't mind paying for something if I keep having fun. As long as the price is reasonable.

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          April 4, 2013 2:17 PM

          See, I agree with that. My other issue is that I felt like I had to log into WoW to make me feel like I was using it for the sub I paid. In reality the sub was the same as going to the movies twice and I certainly played WoW more than 3-5 hours a month.

          I just can't do it anymore, I like Guild Wars 2 because I can hop in any time and play for a bit. I dont' even have a max level character yet and I'm ok with that.

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        April 5, 2013 3:23 PM

        Then toss in $250 if you can, you get a $1 a year sub...I payed over $400 in total playing wow so the $250 was a no brainer for me.

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      April 4, 2013 12:26 PM

      backed for $110!!!!

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        April 6, 2013 6:14 PM

        Considering the "Young Hero" level too, but a PVP-only game is kind of making me a bit hesitant.

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      April 4, 2013 5:45 PM

      So Mark Jacobs, most recently known for such hits as Hellgate: London and Warhammer Online, and a couple experienced developers "plus a young group of talented artists and programmers, for some of whom this is their first industry gig" are planning to build a subscription MMO from scratch with their own tech for $4 million dollars... If this gets funded I would be shocked to see a functioning beta ever released let alone a real game.

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        April 4, 2013 6:11 PM

        Jacobs had nothing to do with Hellgate London.That was Bill Roper if I recall

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          April 4, 2013 7:59 PM

          I stand corrected. Jacobs was credited on Hellgate: London but only under "Special Thanks" which could mean anything from consulting/short-term contract work on the game to just being friends with the leads.

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        April 5, 2013 3:26 PM

        You do realize they have programmers from Skyrim....and a working tower defense game for mac. They also are not building the game from scratch. They already stated that they will be utilizing a lot of out of the box programming engines. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained/posts/444733 Check that out.

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      April 4, 2013 5:57 PM

      This looks interesting but the subscription model is a big turn-off.

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        April 5, 2013 3:29 PM

        95% of Free2Play games the players end up paying WAY more than for sub based games. Yes I understand that the micro-transactions are getting popular but if you play any F2P games you know what I am talking about. You buy skins...then they come out with more, then more then new characters that you have to buy, with new skins.....so yeah you would most likely spend THOUSANDS over a 4-5 year period instead of the 10-12 per month for this game? Mark Jacobs already stated that the sub will be less than traditional MMOS so you wont see the 14.95 a month here.

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          April 5, 2013 6:37 PM

          Personally, I prefer the traditional model of just forking over $50-$60 and be done with it, rather than microtransactions or subscriptions. Guild Wars 2 showed that this can work in the MMO format.

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      April 5, 2013 3:51 PM

      I am SOOOoooo Pumped about this project!!! I'm Itching to play it now! its going to be a long, itchy 2 years. >,<

      Join the KickStart!
      http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained?ref=live

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