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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.

8 of 33 comments (clear)

  1. Much needed by Orleron · · Score: 2

    Our NWN Persistent World, Avlis is really showing its age, but unfortunately there really hasn't been a spiritual successor to Neverwinter Nights' PW system. Once this thing is up, it will hopefully bring us into this decade.
    --Orleron

  2. 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!

  3. Re:cool by Orleron · · Score: 2

    A Neverwinter clone isn't such a bad thing if it's more customizable, expandable, and with a better UI.

  4. Re:Games are getting to be like TV shows by Draconi · · Score: 4, Informative

    We should mention that this is actually Round #2 with Kickstarter.

    When we didn't reach our first goal, we continued development with our own money (as we had been doing from the inception of the game). As former leads on Ultima Online, we have a solid vision for what we want to bring forward to the gaming world, as well as the sandbox and production experience to make it happen.

    Kickstarter is all about accelerating and enhancing development of our core tech. One nice thing that differentiates us from most Kickstarters that have a bunch of concept art and a pitch is that we have a working game already built. Now it's all about fleshing it out into a full MMO so we're not just recreating a middleware market.

    Shards Online is all about building an amazing sandbox game, and then giving the full content over to players.

  5. Many people have had this idea before by GoodNewsJimDotCom · · Score: 2

    Many people have had this idea before, so it is just the execution that matters.

    If I'm correct, this is Little Big Planet meets MMORPGs on player run servers. This idea generally always starts with,"Imagine if everyone could make their own levels and people could go from server to server with the same character." But then the realization that hackers could do what they want with your player data when you entered the server makes a game designer then go,"Okay, so let everyone design the rules on their own server then since hackers will do it if we don't". The cool part is if you allow monetization of player made Objects which sell in a global store across all servers. The owner of the object created and the game company would split revenue. There's some details about how things could be hacked to spawn free items, but a little thought could quell the hackers on this front.

    The coolest part is that you could have games which are like Skyrim, but there would be live gamemaster(s) there. They could then have you interact with NPCs with live dialogue or do things a computer game alone wouldn't be able to reason. People could be in serious demand of a game where they are playing with a live game master because there might be continual end game after being capped with equipment.

    Between charging for objects people made in Blender and uploaded to the game development team to be put on the market, and people charging for monthly access to their server, the creative minds could make enough for rent on this game. And once creative minds developing new worlds are making revenue, there's no stopping how in depth the games get. This in turn draws more players and developers in too.

    For the past year I've been saying the future of video games is video games with quality map makers like Little Big Planet, but sharing revenue with the creators of the new content.

    --
    God spoke to me
    1. Re:Many people have had this idea before by Orleron · · Score: 2
      Pieces of this exist already, and have for years. The "create your own server" model works great in NWN, but that game is ancient now, and few others have been able to mimic its versatility. Some have tried. The "make and sell your own objects" is pretty vibrant on FPS games like Team Fortress 2 and in sandbox games like Second Life, obviously. As you said, the execution is what matters.

      However, when it comes to execution, I don't even think the game needs to be the latest and greatest as far as graphics go. An indie studio will never match the multi-tens of millions spent by studios on graphical assets, voiceovers, etc. By contrast, people still play MUD's even today, and those are just text. Why? Because some of them are executed well. I don't think good execution relies too heavily on eye-popping graphics. As long as the UI is good, the toolset is good, and the EULA is workable, it will be great.

      Bioware's NWN really shot itself in the foot with its EULA which forbade making money from a player-made server, btw.

  6. Re:cool by TyFoN · · Score: 2

    This game is not vaporware, the money is to bring it to alpha.
    The devs were streaming ingame last weekend with a few other players showing stuff.

    The developerrs also match all the money from the kickstarter themself up to $50000.