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Player-Run MMORPG By Former Ultima Online Devs Finding Kickstarter Success

Posted by Soulskill on from the +1-sword-of-smiting-as-a-stretch-goal dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Shards Online has returned to Kickstarter with a refocused plan and a promise to match pledges dollar-for-dollar up to their goal. With just a week gone by, they have already reached 75% of their goal. Project Lead Derek Brinkmann says, "If Ultima Online and Neverwinter Nights had a love child, Shards Online would be the result. By combining the persistent virtual world of Ultima Online with the freedom of community run servers and the ability to act as a dungeonmaster in Neverwinter Nights, we are creating a paradise for roleplayers where you are no longer constrained by the rules handed to you by the development team." The team now has their sights set on their stretch goals like more animations for roleplayers and an extra game world to be released at Alpha.

2 of 33 comments (clear)

  1. Probably the future of online RPGs by Crashmarik · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Game companies and developers are there own worst enemies these days. It's hard to find anything that doesn't have horrible flaws put in so the game company can charge you to avoid them. At least with player run worlds the people playing will have a connection and ownership interest in seeing that their experience stays a good one.

    1. Re:Probably the future of online RPGs by Draconi · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Exactly, which is why we went indie and have remained that way with Shards Online.

      Big companies would never run this kind of game - we all came from working for the larger publishers, and many of us from working on Ultima Online.

      The whole idea is to build a full MMO and then turn it over to the players. Will we run our own servers? Sure! We can do events, live patches, and add new content regularly. But the most important thing is to have a highly polished end product that community servers don't just treat like middleware: it's a full game to customize how they see fit!