Does it look like a scam? I don't think so. Does it look very early in development, by people who underestimated what they need to actually make a game? Definitely.
I mean im not convinced that its a con.. They probably intend to try and make the game. But its pretty clearly intentionally misleading for hype (the video at least) which was a mistake and not a good start.
@@KibaGVlogs I understand you. I feel the same way too. This isn't a browser-based 2D mmo. You need a lot of money just to afford the server for an mmorpg. Even if you're a good programmer and has a good systems manager in your team, the servers costs for an mmorpg alone would bankrupt you. You would need to have other consistent income such as other well-paying games to prop up the mmorpg at least for the first year because for sure you will lose money on your first year.
a bit of both. it's more like "idiots think they can make a game" mixed with "hey lets make as much money as possible" without realizing just how much WORK is needed to get any sort of game functional, let alone one of the scale they want.
Store bought assets are used by the entire industry, in the early stages of development. it is used as a way to test out functions, in the early stages of development - without having to spend LOADS of cash on hiring artists. They can also be used as a way to test out different styles and whatnot. They are a really good tool to use, and definitely are not "scammy". Good thing that you clarify that :)
My exact thoughts, it's super common especially for indie studios. I know I use pre-made assets either free or bought until I know things will stay around as is for me to work on my own assets. Then until I have the content fleshed out and it's ready for a more or less to be on the commercial release; then I commission a professional to do whatever. Don't wanna waste time or money on things that may or may not make it past ALPHA.
As a young game designer myself, I feel genuinely bad for this dev team, I sincerely hope they turn this around and manage to develop the game they advertised
What I don't understand is why do they always make the scope of the project so damn big??? Start with one room, one house, one castle. Perfect it, then expand. Jeeez
@@JackIsNotInTheBox yeah, thats why a lot of devs started out as modders. gives you a chance to learn all these elements in small pieces, but still have a playable product so others can try it out and give feedback.
@@JackIsNotInTheBox A dev team's first project being their massive AAA scale dream game is... well. Not smart. I, like all other game designers have a dream game. But I've only just begun my career. So I have no intention to pursue a game of that scale anytime soon. It's not realistic. Make a really great small scale game first. If you can't get people to play a quality shorter experience, possibly for free, how can you expect them to invest in a fresh dev team tackling a AAA experience? You have to prove something first. Show them you can create something great to show that money is your only limitation. Then people will back you. Asking for money and promising an example of your great work after getting the check is just empty words. We all make mistakes, they will learn from this experience and hopefully bounce back. First step, make something original. Make it small. Show us the talent on a scale that doesn't need the money.
@@KiraTV1 like you said in other videos:, if you hire someone to give a review, and they have a somewhat reasonable sensibility , the money would be better spent... Like basically anyone who has some semblance of intelligence, and some indication of reality...
Developer here: The fact that they are relying on UE5 coming out and assuming it's a magical engine that will allow them to use "hyper realistic graphics"... for a indie mmo... pretty much guarantees this will be an absolute failure, with no doubt in my mind. There are countless issues with this direction: - Porting a game from UE4 to UE5 will most likely be no easy task. However, we have no idea since there is NO info on UE5 other than trailers. We have NO idea about what this new engine will be, and this team is... already planning on porting over it? And they've never even built a game before? - It's entirely unknown when UE5 will release. A year? Two? - The new rendering tech UE5 uses is ABSOLUTELY not scalable for MMO's, nor is it meant to. There's a reason why the biggest, most funded, AAA MMO's do not use very high resolution models and textures, and it comes to scalability, not the engine they are using. Streaming that much information is not at all viable at this time, even if UE5's tech was absolutely magical and solved all the rendering issues. Constructing such complex models (which means sculpting, UV mapping, texturing, proxying, exporting, testing) is incredibly time-consuming and expensive. MMO's need to be able to pump out content, not take a day to make a single object. (And with a small team + no professionals, this is made 100x worse) - They are allowing graphics to act as a bottleneck that could completely destroy their milestones... that is an absolutely insane route to go. This shows that there is absolutely no one on the team who knows much about rendering, optimization, streaming, project management, networking, or asset pipelines. Which would be fine... if they were building a small game. There is a reason MMO's take millions of dollars of funding (and those funds going towards professional game developers with veteran status in the industry who know the tech inside and out and lead by project directors that have released games in the past, run under the eye of a publisher who has released games in the past).
Lmfao there is a 100% chance you arent a programmer or game dev. Just another entitled gamer kiddycwith opinions. UE 5 is going to be revolutionary. Just as UE 4 was. Its lighting alone is groundbreaking. Go back to mario kart on your ps5 and asking if we need fries w that. People like you are cancer Note i learned my first language and wrote my first game before you were born and know more languages than you can name.
The website has to be remade because the company we hired failed us, we had a planned launch date and they failed to complete it on time. They handed the website over 3 days before our launch date which resulted in a huge mess. We had a huge dispute with them and they returned half the amount we paid. At this time, we just hired a new website developer and things should be modified pretty quickly. Also, apologies for not mentioned as much detailed as we wanted, the original video was over 40 minutes long so we wanted to reduce that. We will release video and news updates this week on the remainder.
@@Brokkoluffy Yes please, the team and myself would be more then grateful to have the opportunity to answer your questions and make things right with the community.
I'm really sorry guys but some things here just don't add up to me, not sure if it's how you're explaining it or just me missing some key context. There were issues with them giving you the site 3 days beforehand right? They've refunded you half the cost, that's great. Why exactly would you need to "remake" the website? As far as I can tell it functions mostly as a website should function, there's just the actual text content which is off, but you could edit yourself and somethings that didn't work correctly such as the pledge/amount tickers. Hardly something you would need to "remake" the website for. Also is this a fulltime hire? Like salaried hire and not a freelancer on short term?
@@LegionTheEternalWar I think you guys would have been better off working for another year or more on this before trying to do a kickstarter. There have been far too many scams and absolute failures that people are a lot more wary, it's an unfortunate reality.
Somethings will be slightly remade, mostly a overall polish. We want to hold a long term relationship with this developer. He is on a contract that is part-time until the website is improved. Then we will determine how much work is remaining and create a new a contract based on the situation.
@@KiraTV1 - The problem is that they say 'here is our world'. It's all premade assets. What did they expect? What they should hsve done is show the game design. How do the classes work? How does combat work? Show us the skill trees. Using premade assets is fine but you can't show them to people like they're something. But of course probably none of that work is done either. They don't have a design philosophy and they don't know how they want the game to work. All they have is a container to hold assets. Which we can't evaluate at all since we don't know if it works.
@@KiraTV1 It's pretty much video game Q/A, but you'd cover PR, first impressions and parts of game design. Some of these MMOs obviously need some help, pretty sure there would be a market for it.
@@axxurge yeah man I'm pretty clued up on how it would play out. It's something I already have done for many dev teams for free. Something I'd love to do for actual money since I have less free time now and generally have to reject helping people now days due to that. Just difficult to get your foot in the door and get paid for it , everyone wants my help for free :)
On the part about them swapping out assets with Unreal engine 5 is semi realistic. We are all awaiting to see our new constraints on polycount, etc and therefore are going to use a new workflow for our games. For the most part this is accurate and sane
I'm sorry to say that I've heard this tune over and over at indie games cafe and it's unfortunately just a novice mistake (that I used to sing myself, too). Better equipment or technology won't make up for your lack of competence. Unreal Engine 5 won't be your miracle. Same as e.g. Blender 3 won't make people 3D artists in a night. Same as a Shuriken Linex 9 won't make you a guitarist in few hours. You can ease up on polycounts, but if you don't know hands on about sculpting, uv, shading, rigging, optimising and yada yada that won't save you. First you learnt, then you can use the technology to ease the pipeline, but first and foremost you need to know what you are looking at :). As I said, I learnt it myself and I love automations but there is no magic djin behind it. They have really cool concept art so I don't understand why they don't start NOW exercising and experimenting on it starting from the ground up with low poly.
@@MarianHevein I've been doing 3D in Maya and now Blender for almost ten years now. What did you come here to enlighten me upon? Lmao You just backed up what I said without realizing it. Goofball :)
@@brannonharris4642 well that's good for you I suppose :) I love agreeing with people more than arguing with them :) I wasn't even trying to argue so I hope you haven't fired up for nothing! The comment was directed towards the developers of this game that clearly hope for a software update to be a saving grace. And if you are one of them, what are you waiting for before turning those amazing concepts to 3D in your Maya and/or Blender :)!
@@MarianHevein definitely not one of the devs. And I think I did a good job not being too salty in my reply. What I hoped to communicate was that we are in agreeance on this topic. We are just approaching the response and solution from different scopes
@@KiraTV1 Someone named "Althea Damgaard" in the comment section here said they worked for Legion before. To me, what they said (if true), means these people simply do not know what they're doing. They're figuring things out as they go. It's a common "culture" in the software industry, especially among the young developers.
@@KiraTV1 yes you are not mean you are realistic. And people who don't like it should fuck off instead of pointlessly bitching about it in the comments :D
16:25 - to answer your question. Yes, it will be a massive difference. Just have a look at UE5 demo that was out like a year ago. But, as with my years of experience working with UE4, it is necessary to wait at least for the first hotfix. Jumping to a new version won't be that easy as some people think. Especially where you are working on a big MMO game.
They speak as if monster spawn areas outside of castles where people will congregate is some amazing feature they developed. It doesn't look like these people have any real vision for the game, and if they do, they certainly can't get it across to the public.
Especially since using premade assets is not inherently a bad thing. Tons of major studios do this, just look at the quixel megascan library, and in what project it was used (projects such as monster hunter world, or pacific rim). It allows to save on development time and cost. And if used right, you can use those assets to make something completely original. If they had been upfront about that fact, and about the reason why, then people would have been way more accepting.
If I was trying to make a medieval combat game, say an mmo, I would use and abuse the everliving fuck out of premade assets. So long as the gameplay is good, it’ll be a fun game. It means I have to charge less, but over time, we can hire artists to redo everything and give it an actual art style. Just don’t be fucking shy that you’re not an artist, and that you can’t afford an artist. The truth is always the best in the end. Be professional.
I think for early dev, premades are a neccesity but when you are unveiling your game you need to have some key assets as yours, this is their mistake. I also think for the people who are being 'toxic' about premades, it's a numbers game, how many games have you played that are great made completely from pre-made assets, it's not many so really people like that are just playing the numbers.
Legion had only one new, interesting thing to say in their kickstarter video, and that is how PVP-ers protected the PVE-ers. I doubt that one little thing could be turned into the core of gameplay, but it's a nice, unique little thing to have. Everything else was ordinary MMORPG talk, or something that was done better elsewhere.
Hi, I was actually on this team last year and left for reasons I will not voice publicly. So the goal was to have a demo made and it would be all with premade stuff to show story flow and combat the main things. It never happened and changed more than once while I was there. I had really hoped they would figure things out after I left, but this feels like last year to me when I had tried to figure things out. And they are still talking of making that demo which should have been done as the first video and showcasing. It was to have story path and literally show the combat but the true skill tree and idea of the combat was only finally laid out in some spreadsheets and actually growing from asset stuff in October 2020. Anyway, I was hoping Cody had learned from the Steam 2019 attempt and the little poke in July 2020 that you can easily find in the top 10 links for this game when you do a google search. I still hope they learn and take this video as proper criticism.
I think you won't be getting many good jobs in the future when your prospective employers search your name and find that you're predisposed to posting comments on social media talking shit about your former bosses and how they don't know what they're doing. After seeing this, I sure as hell wouldn't hire you regardless of skills.
@@davecarsley8773 As an indie dev who would love to hire people in the future, I'd totally hire someone who criticized their former employer, as long as it seemed justified and not unreasonable. I'd even give them bonus points if they came from a particularly shady project, or a failed project. Not like I have anything to hide, and I don't want a bunch of yes-men. I'd be seriously skeptical of anyone who _is_ against hiring someone just because they criticized a project they had previously worked on, because that shows you _do_ have something to hide. After seeing this, I sure as hell wouldn't back your project regardless of how good it looks.
Its true tho. Just dont talk shit of your former employers. Somebody would find this charming but most wont. It show lack of loyality. Thats a deadly blow for a career. Unless illegal stuff involved. Listen to me...delete youe comment and move on.
@@Kenshiroit Seriously people need to stop encouraging people to stay silent about things... the world would be a better place if more people spoke up and were honest instead of cowering in fear all the time. That's exactly the reason so much shady crap goes on and how people get away with things. That said this is a random unverifiable comment on a random RUclips video, and RUclips comments aren't very searchable to begin with. If someone were to use this casual non-specific comment that won't even tell the full story as a way to reject someone, I don't think I could personally stomach working at a place that petty even if I was okay with the policy on blind loyalty and rejection of criticism plus whatever other shady practices they're trying to hide.
To answer your question, Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) is just Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) with a few new systems. Most notably Nanite (allows more detailed meshes) and Lumen (allows more realistic lighting). While these new systems are huge for large open world game devs like us, they don't change the basic challenges that developers have to overcome to make a game. In particular the cost of custom game assets. Replacing the marketplace assets shown in their game could easily cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on the quality level required. This isn't a scam, it is just basic incompetence.
Nanite is game changing fot MMOs my man.. allowing game developers to automatically and massively scale in-game art assets. This means virtualized micropolygon geometry, artists get full freedom to create as much details as the eye can see. Devs will be able to create high quality assets and UE 5 will take care of distance scaling, normal maps and a number of other things. This means creating one high quality assets instead of 5 different versions for scaling.. This is massive for MMOs. Yes its pretty much a update to UE5 but the 2 new systems are game changing.
Heh, YT recommended KiraTV for me after watching the Sarah Z video about Homestuck. Really recommend Sarah, like her style and she kinda digs deep on her topics. I also really like KiraTV take on things and became an immediate subscriber =)
these guys should use the artwork and concept and just make a tabletop rpg instead of an mmo, they neither have the money nor skill to accomplish such a feat and are just digging themselves a deeper pit everytime they try to prove the concept viable.
Unreal Engine 5 is supposed to have tech that allows for high detailed Environments while maintaining FPS. Nanite (UE5) Nanite virtualized micropolygon geometry frees artists to create as much geometric detail as the eye can see.
@@Doddlen - I'm not really sure the details of how it works but basically you are supposed to be able to use the High Detailed version of assets with millions of polies which with normal engines would bring current gaming PCs to their knees. No more need for Normal maps or anything.
Making a good game is 100% about the systems, not the art. Using store bought assets is the ONLY way to go for a leanly ran indie company When the devs are happy about the party system, you know there are not enough systems here for anything revolutionary.
After watching the whole review video, we totally agree... There was a few (maybe more than a few) mistakes. We are viewing this like.... The only direction we can go is up from here... We will keep pushing strong and bring the updates. The money we required was mostly to swap out all the unreal engine assets. When it comes to creating the actual game using unreal engine marketplace assets we should have no problem continuing with them on a lower budget until we correct our mistakes and prove ourselves as developers. As for the play test, your right... no point to make a goal regarding backers. We will just release early to earn the trust and support from kind folks who share the vision and want to help make the game better and support the project.
The game looks pretty cool. However personally I'd NEVER do another Kickstarter or crowdfunded project again. Having worked on a successfully crowdfunded MMO that eventually crashed and burned after tons of bad rep. It's nearly destroyed my chances of ever having a successful game. The only way I'd even consider doing another crowdfunded project is if I get the game completely done and playable with store bought assets and just needed the funds to swap out the assets for custom ones and cost for servers to expand the servers from development servers (Cheap ones able to handle a few developers) to production servers (Capable of handling hundreds or thousands). But good luck with your game. It's certainly one I'll be keeping an eye on.
The fact that you didn't even proof read this comment after saying you agree with his video instantly shatters my trust. You should be able to learn from your mistakes. ***you're right*** not "your right". Furthermore, your sentence structure and grammar isn't amazing (for one: "When it comes to creating the actual game" should have a comma after it, seeing that it is a preposition, and the rest of that sentence is run on)
Apologies on the grammar, if you are passionate about writing you should consider joining our team, we are currently looking to bring a person on who can proof read everything before it goes out, my personal passion is related to game design. Everyone has their niche and interests that is why a solid team is so important. We work together to make up for each others weaknesses. Feel free to get in contact if you are interested.
Now that UE5 is in early access - it's THE deal, yes. But lower end PC's like mine (GTX960) won't be able to play at higher settings, unless a GTX 1080 counts as low-end, as that's the min requirement to run the demo template :D Also it's early access, and Epic are advising against using it for production projects, so it's probably still a few months before it's fully ready. Also the more technical parts of the 3D workflow are still going to be there, so it's not like the engine will magically fix everything.
I don't understand why indie developers always try to make the 'next big' mmorpg. If AAA companies can't do it, it is unlikely they can. Why don't just pick niche idea and build around that, rather then building super complex stuff that never gets finished? Look at what happened to FPS - PUBG, Tarkov, all nieche ideas built into great games. For example just give us instanced questing, where several players need to fulfill competing objectives. I believe this could be super fun if done well, with much less work required.
I think your assessment and comments are spot on KiraTV. I would add that I agree that game dev's should focus on developing core systems and getting the design straight before focusing too much attention on aesthetics but ideally this should be done first and foremost in a project if you are going in front of public asking for money and you STILL haven't got those things figured out and the preliminary parts of those systems are not in place... your getting ahead of yourselves completely. Ideally one should already have a working prototype version of their game systems internally where they've worked out kinks and tested that their ideas don't actually suck before starting to build a complete world in which to present those ideas. Combine that together with a world and then polish it up a whole lot and THEN you present yourself to the gaming communities and ask for support. Otherwise your just asking for people to pay in the hopes that you'll just figure it out along the way and it will all fall into place. As for UE5, its not a silver bullet solution. And there is a lot of assumptions and a lot of hype/hope by many Indie Dev's based on having seen Tech-Demo's from Epic. We really need to work with it first before making claims as to what it will offer. It also will not fundamentally change the core of what makes a game fun and how those are built in UE5 as those will largely remain unchanged from UE4. While it will potentially lower the production costs and difficulties faced in using hi-fi assets in a game project there is no certainty as to how much will change from the traditional processes yet, also to claim it will allow low end machines to handle hi-fi complex worlds is a big assumption that overly simplifies things as it is not a one size fits all problem when it comes to game design. I can create a game loop that bricks any machine out there by being stupid in my approach and it could have very little aesthetics, or fill the scene full of niagara particles effects, bad design will still cause problems for lower end machines no matter what engine is being used. Lastly while they are correct in that using premade assets from any 3rd party brings its share of problems, this won't change when they make their own custom assets. The time/cost involved in creating and fixing those will simply be their own now, and having their own high fidelity source material just gives them more control to address them and if done with certain tools can even be corrected parametrically in some cases. UE5 will ideally change and simplify the process/time involved in delivering assets efficiently and getting them working in Engine more seamlessly but creating source material will still be time consuming and the result in the end will still largely be dependent on developer skill and experience.
As someone who uses Unreal 5 daily at work.... No. It isn't a magic solution to everything. It doesn't make low-end PCs able to magically play at ultra settings. It just allows the scale of things to be much more immense and allows us to create extremely level of detail on the same hardware. Still not magic, it has to be optimized like any game, but it certainly gives us the ability to make bigger, more detailed worlds compared to what Unreal 4 achieved. The main issue with him talking about it in the context of this game... Unreal 5 has basically no application in MMORPGs such as this. Unless you are trying to make Star Citizen or Ashes of Creation (and even Ashes is kinda using it more as a marketing hype thing)... a game like this with low levels of detail won't really utilize UE5's most important features.
Lots of devs these days use easy asset creation tools (speed tree) or megascan props from Quixel. It sounds like these devs just took example maps meant for asset showcases and prototyping, but they tried to raise money with it. Huge red flag. UE5 is a big leap forward, but it won't stop them from having bad judgment.
This is why companies/development studios have project managers and public relations. Lets be honest, 9 times out of 10 video game crowdfunding that predominately uses store bought assets never transition over to original work. Crowdfunding and Kickstarter has turned into "Lets pay these guys to hopefully learn how to develop games." rather than actually funding competent developers to create a product.
Good luck to you guys, really hope you can get on top of bringing in some original assets to at least get your vision and style on display. Kira thanks again for an awesome video!
Glad you addressed the "scam". A scam is an explicit intent to defraud, conceal and ultimately not deliver the value promised. That's not the same as mismanagement, making mistakes, or being flat-out incompetent. I think a lot of failures and mistakes are due to passionate enthusiasts taking on an effort they don't have the experience managing. Being a genius designer, developer, artist, et al. even banded together doesn't mean they have the skills to manage a product, must less the project or a company. I wish all of the authentic believers and their efforts well but the inexperience in product management and business shows so early.
Bad sign when I see 'Lighting needs to be rebuilt' error on screen during anything marketing related. And the real scary thing is the code base assets I can see them using. I promise this game will not be released in this state as anything but a demo of a story or idea
Anyone else not really care if games use store-bought assets? I mean, even major studios do it all the time for sound-why is it such a huge deal if you've seen the same trees or item/ability icons or whatever in a different game? Custom art has got to be a *massive* expense...it wouldn't surprise me if it was up to 50% of development cost. It makes perfect sense that games not produced by major studios would use store-bought models/textures/icons/etc (or start with/build around different code packs). I remember when Trion added some third-party cloak physics to Rift; nobody lost their shit and bitched them out for not developing their own cloth physics.
@KiraTV You asked dev for an opinion at 16:30 so here is mine. That's also to the dev's directly. What they showed here looks worse than the trailer they made for kickstarter, but IS better. We would not have the asset flip argument underneath the previous videos if they showed this, as this clearly shows they have a working prototype that is running on multiplayer. I can see ALSv4 animation system, I can see some particle packs and other marketplace assets - but they serve the purpose of representing what's going on, and as long as maps are not copy-paste of example maps, it's all good. Marketplace assets often are not very good - but you can still arrange a castle from your concept arts from them. So again - my concern about "assety flippery" aspect of the project was not using marketplace assets, but literally cutting the marketplace presentation videos of those assets. shots used 1:1 from the cameras placed in the demo scene for them. That was a lazy and cheeky move. Now to address UE5... that's it's coming soon and it will be heaven. I'm sorry but what the hell are you talking about? Yes - UE5 has a special LOD system that allows to import even raw meshes from zbrush into the game and use them in the best quality possible - but did you consider that a single zbrush statue used in the ue5 presentation was just one statue as such model is around 3 gigabytes of disk space? and you want the entire game to not use lower poly count meshes? good luck with that. Also, UE5 will be in preview for the first YEAR. And even I will try to learn it I will not port any working project I am working on right now to it - as it won't be as easy as you think. the worst part of what devs are saying is trying to take off responsibility for making the game and putting it on epic games. when something happens then we will do something. You know what.. On ue4 store I saw this incredible pack called "landscape architect" - a voxel plugin from the creator of dungeon architect. a top-notch asset. one of the best plugins out there. I was waiting for it, and it was necessary for one of my projects.. so as soon as it will be out I will make my game! And it was due to come out in half a year....... 5 years ago. So you say - we haven't put on effort, as what... your work, maps, models, etc - would not transfer to ue5 some magically but all your gaming code will? I hate it when someone is making excuses that they are waiting for a technological breakthrough that will make their lives easier... allegedly. But we're not really sure. and we don't know when. What you showed here was a game. Start making it THE game. it seems you can! So don't waste money on bullshit pr, websites, and stuff - and make the damn game. Oh, and Quixel library for free with ue4 exists. -_- so not every single brick and rock has to be hand sculpted for an excessive amount of money. p.s. no one LITERALLY NO ONE cares about your website. get discord community in check, and social media to communicate updates. Noone will visit your website to check updates every now and then. Also for websites: WIX.COM exists.
Hey Kira, I came back to watch this video again after initially watching it months ago. I'm curious to know if you'd consider possibly following up with these guys and doing another video? I think out of most "Kickstarter" games you've covered, this one seems to be an interesting one to stay up to date on. Cheers!
likewise and that project was also utilizing ue4 assets but they actually used them in an acceptable way. They also have the experience to make a game so that helps a lot!
It's coming up to 12 years now since the advent of Kickstarter, but here we see yet another example of where the firm hand of a publisher is sorely missed. It's probably a blessing in disguise that their fundraiser failed so badly. Could you imagine what they'd do with a couple of millions to waste?
MMOs are like the most complex and expensive to support genre of game you could choose to make. Do we really need Indie MMOs? Why are people backing these projects? Even if they deliver an amazing game it will probably fail just because not enough people will play it to pay to keep the servers running & hire mods to deal with player behavior etc.
I am trying to figure out how to articulate this. If the developers read this, I am going to try to be constructive. It's not about just being able to make a competent MMO anymore. The gaming industry is in a similar place to where the music industry went when everyone and their 12 year old brother could pirate Fruity Loops or Ableton and download 17 different VSTs and drum packs. That means players are subjected to a torrential downpour of alpha footage, beta footage, early access footage, cinematic trailers, demo videos, first impressions, review videos, coming soon videos, reveal trailers, patch videos, update videos, teaser videos.... for every single variety and genre of games, coming from every direction, from Triple A huge budget projects to the smallest indie games. New games, sequel games, prequel games, remake games, HD re-release games, DLCs, addons, expansions, spiritual successors, it literally never ends. You have to understand from our perspective, how desensitized that makes us. How difficult it has become to keep the attention of a significant playerbase when they can't go near RUclips or Steam without being showered with this. What that means for you as a developer is that just making a game competently, or having a passion for a genre and wanting to make a game in it, that's just not enough. This is what their website says the game features: - castle building system - gathering - hunting - crafting - PvP - raids - war - a player-driven economy I mean.... guys. I almost feel dumb having to actually say this, you have to know better than to think this is anything even close to a selling point or reason to catch the attention of MMO fans in 2021. Especially given the climate of the industry we're in, as stated above. You can use storebought assets. You can have generic graphics. You can use tired aesthetics. This isn't the problem, and it's not the reason your game is just not cutting it. The reason is because you are aiming your sights on literally forgettable and mediocre. The only way to break through in this industry nowadays is to offer an idea that stands out. Something that drives the industry forward. You can use old fashioned, conventional mechanics, but if you don't build something wholly unique on them, you're just another page that people click for 5 seconds in the Steam store. Take Valheim for example. There's a reason that game has taken the gaming world by storm. It's not the graphics, it's not the building or the crafting, it's not every single aspect of procedural generation based minecraft-likes recycled in a Viking setting. The reason that game caught so much attention and praise was because it finally broke through the wall that so many games over the past 10 years since Minecraft just couldn't seem to figure out how to do. They found a way to give you everything Minecraft does, but make it feel like you are running through a world that was hand crafted beforehand for a planned single player experience. They somehow figured out how to combine the excitement and action and progression that an open world RPG gives players, with the absolute freedom and unpredictable "what's beyond that hill over there?" feeling that Minecraft and similar titles brought to the scene. So the point is basically... reach for something higher. Do something that hasn't been done, even if you stack it on a foundation of mechanics that we've seen plenty of times. Make players say "I've never thought of that, that's awesome". Make developers say "I wish I thought of that first." It doesn't take eye popping Triple A visuals or a world full of finely crafted doodads and original assets. It only takes brilliance and imagination. We've seen more well done games that stay within conventional boundaries come and go now, more than we can even remember, every single week. We want to see the boundaries broken.
They need to hire a manager, not an artist or a web dev. They come off as a bunch of devs/programmers who are used to being told what to do, but now that they're having to set their own goals and deadlines they're just floundering or dicking around. That's not uncommon when it comes to dev passion projects-they don't want other people telling them what to do. That's why they're so against getting private funding-it would come with deadlines and conditions and obligations.
Everytime I think my own MMO engine is "getting close" I watch one of Kira's brutal (but honest) reviews of indies doing foolish indie things and slap myself. I've got a lot of work to do. :) Thanks for the content as always sir.
@KiraTV DEV here: Unreal 5 currently is still in Early Access, which typically means its not ready for production just yet. So does he know WHEN completed UE5 will be launched and has his Legion development schedule is built around having the full/complete version of UE5? most likely not.
While Unreal engine 5 does mean lower end PCs can run higher graphic settings and more complex assets, those assets still have to be made and filling a game with custom assets of that high quality is super expensive
Ue5 is amazing but just because you have ue5 doesn't mean you can make custom assets for free or easier. You still have to be good with 3d modeling and takes alot of time. They honestly should've tried to a non mmo game first to get people excited about the world and also so people can trust that you can make a game and finish it
What the UE5 release does, as far as I understood, is making it easier to have a huge amount of polygons/triangles in one scene. They also introduced a method to render 3D scenes as 2D images on your screen, thus using a lot less performance. But: this was already possible before. Developers just had to write it themselves. If done right it'll most likely still be better to do it yourself, since all out of the box tools in UE are, while easy to use, not very performant. For an indie studio this will most likely be very helpful. But we'll see if it'll be performant enough to be played on low end systems.
These guys have gotten into the trap of trying to Run before they can walk, their priority's are in the wrong places wasting money thinking they need a fancy website to look legit. It's like if someone wanted to start steaming, they go out thinking they need to buy two high tech PCs and the best webcam and microphone but not really knowing what to do with that equipment, running off ahead instead of starting slow and building a sturdy foundation....
Why do these tiny small teams aims so damn high? Why don't they try making a smaller scale single player or co-op game to get some experience and credibility before trying to make the hardest game genre out there?
Kira getting spooked by the discord noises the same time as I was checking my own discord really made this video for me. Love the channel mate, just discovered you recently and have been binging all your kickstarter videos!
Does motion blurr lessen performance burden? Otherwise I don't get why even add something like that. Edit: Tbh even with all the good and genuine intentions, I don't see this succeeding in a time where New World, Ashes of Creation, Mortal Online 2 and many other "giants" roam the MMO edges and are nearing the landing (release) bay.
I'm still going to keep this game on my list of games to check in on every now and then to see if progress is being made. They had some ideas I liked, but definitely not putting any money towards this one lol.
Also I'd like to ask, what is their overall idea for the game? They are passionate about it, fair, but do they want to make "the same" but for them? Meaning, they just want an mmorpg not tab targeted and... yeh castle sieges etc, these are all VERY COOL features, but its not unique to them. Are they gonna have complex crafting (akin to mortal online), gathering, trading, base building, whats the goal? To go wow-style and get the best gear just because (outdated concept imho) whats the end goal for the player? Because playing for the pvp/pve with castle sieges is already done. its not wrong to make another "more of the same", but don't expect it to flourish and spread like wildfire in that case.
Going from UE4 to 5 is not trivial. Some things will go across seamlessly, like certain visual assets but there are many pitfalls. Dynamic materials (things that glow, particle systems, etc) have differences that can even crash the engine if you simply try to move them from one to another. There are problems with Interfaces becoming invalid between classes- not hard to fix but still a stumbling block. Another big issue is simply training- there are tons of videos concerning just about anything you can think of in UE4, but not so much for 5. This is where the pitfalls reach out and slap you- following a UE4 tutorial but something was changed in UE5. One of the most amazing things about UE5 is it can handle what effectively infinitely complex visual assets yet you cant copy+paste variables from one blueprint to another (sorry if that is lost on you- its a visual programming system)
I think thats the best way anyone had ever put it. You gotta pick lies and flashy or bare bones and honest. Hoping they can make something worth talking about in the coming months. Or am I alone thinking that?
New subscriber, I like you Kira, and I respect your opinion bro. You put into words, what most are thinking, if that makes sense! Thanks for the videos!
If a company isn't big enough to make an MMO without relying on kickstarter or crowdfunding, they shouldn't be bothering and should try something smaller in scope that they can actually deliver on. Proper MMO's cost hundreds of millions to create, and require huge teams.
I understand this sentiment however I disagree. "Proper mmorpgs" is a really weird subjective. What is proper ? Black desert for example cost a few million dollars , I think they got most the game done under 1 mill. Albion online was done under a few million. There have been ones over the years that cost a couple mill or less and did very well for themselves. Its all about scale as well as game design. What you are talking about is likely themepark games right ? The ones that require you to build out the entire game with content tailored around players going from point a to point b , with thousands of quests , dialogue, storyline, dungeons and raids with balanced mechanics , a gear treadmill etc etc. That isn't all mmorpgs. That is a sub genre , themepark games which do cost more to make for sure. This isn't that , nor are most the crowdfunded games and thus they don't have the same requirements. I will say though I do agree companies with very little money should make something small first and then use profits to make something better. Just like the devs behind starbase did. But I do think we need indie studios and crowdfunding to get interesting titles , people just need to have more common sense on both sides of the equation.
Regarding creating the MMORPG programming, we have enough. The highest costs are related to changing out all the terrible animations and unreal engine marketplace assets. We can deliver a MMO using 100% unreal engine marketplace assets, it just is not the ideal outcome.
This is the first thing they teach you in the dev. Never go for the big mmorpg open world Skyrim GTA clone etc. I guess with how shitty the mmorpg genre is people get lost in the frustration/excitement of creating one.
@@LegionTheEternalWar hey I'm not a programmer so forgive my ignorance on this but in the video you say you want to get the gameplay down before the assets as ue5 is coming out soon but surely it would be easier to port of art than it would be to port over the development?
By "crowd-funding build" I assume they mean the build of the game they made for the crowd-funding project. At the beginning they said they just added the Archer class, but the armor isn't in yet. I would assume that is because they are using an older build of the game. As well; "The jumping animations looks gimpy" - That is the ALS animation system. I agree, the basic animations are not very good imo either. Also, no, UE5 is NOT going to allow low-end PCs to play on higher graphic settings. For people who have mid-tier and high-tier PCs, the new systems they've added are amazing and are going to allow for all the hyper realism, and all of that cool stuff they talked about. However, a lot of it won't work in VR, and it is still intensive to run, it is just a vast improvement in technology.
Using premade assets is fine, but then I do wanna see what your core mechanics are gonna be, if you can't show me what your core gameplay is gonna look like even if it's janky then you can't get my support. Tbh idgaf about how it looks when you just wanna communicate your vision for the game, it can be a bunch of blocky low poly models with very basic texturing done to them for all I care. Gameplay is the most important, if you wanna show graphics then show concept art or 3D models that you've already made or an environmental slice.
The characters and armors are done by an in-house artist. The concepts of the world are shown in the video, it was just hard to find a proper level artist.
@@fedayeen_revolutionist K. But I said I don't really care about any of that if someone wants to pitch a game to me, they can literally show me cubes. I said that I wanna see something the resembles the core mechanics that they have in mind. They don't show that, but it's the most important thing.
Kira tellin it how it is. I would definitely like to see how this game develops though I have looked into the team a little and they seem to be pretty passionate about it. I really hope they find the independent funding they need to make it good
They did have the game open to everyone in 2019. Had very little in it and I think most people would login for a few minutes and then you wouldn't hear from them again for 1-2 years, like me =P. Having the game open to everyone and having no NDA can backfire. An example of this was Book of Travels. It initially had no NDA. People were streaming it ... and it hurt = ). I remember I was yelling at a rock for 15 minutes and that was the peak of the stream. They slapped NDA on it within 24 hours. I think it's important to show your overall vision of the game. I personally don't even think you necessarily have to show exactly where the game's at, like with Ashes. What's mot important is that you provide security that the investment into a game will not fail. Ashes' security was Steven's personal money. The game was privately funded by its creator and it only needed additional funding to expand the scope of the game. I went into Legion because I've been in their discord since 2019 and I know that it's not a scam and that they'll eventually get it done, even if it's at a smaller scope, lower quality, and takes a lot longer. They're one of the most passionate and open MMORPG indie teams that you're going to find across all of the indie MMORPG projects that are currently active. Take it from me, I'm in almost every indie MMORPG project discord. They're also not necessarily professionals. They're not industry veterans. They're not necessarily developers. Astaria's being made by a high school history teacher =O. Of course they're going to make mistakes. They aren't like a full actual company. You saw the entire "company" in this video, and they all work part time and are mostly unpaid. They've been having funding issues since 2019 and nobody's been able to convince Cody to go into kickstarter or indiegogo.
Hits the nail on the head with the website thing. If that's really how it went down.. How in the world do you run a company and not be bothered to look over your own website before it goes live? Couldn't even be bothered. Well, they know now. Good luck to them.
I don't play MMORPG but subscribed and I'm enjoying the channel a lot. Especially this type of videos. Btw, did I miss it, or didn't they say what was their plan in case they don't get enough money to make the game?
They didn't mention it at all, a point I brought up with them. Hopefully they will publicly put something out soon. I'm glad you're enjoying the content mate!
@@KiraTV1 to be "fair", I don't think they can really answer that question correctly unless they say they have private investment lined-up if needed. Otherwise they are just gonna dig themselves into a whole. I was just curious of what their plan was. Like you and many other people commenting, I think they are probably just not that competent and dont fully grasp what it takes to finish this project and are simply overlooking very important stuff. I bet they don't really have a plan. They thought making this video was gonna be enough and hope to get enough crowdfunding to get to the snowball point of funding. But you can't just say you gonna explain something THAT important and then just ignore it and think everyone isn't just gonna notice.
In my opinion, they're just decent people who overestimated themselves and underestimated the difficulty of mmorpg. MMORPGs are definitely not a game you should make as you first few games. I've made 2 games so far for my games design classes and mmorpgs absolutely scares me. You need a lot of money to make mmorpgs. That is assuming even that you can handle the intricacies of online gaming. Not shitting on their parade, and I admire that they're motivated to try, but this is probably beyond their capabilities. My suggestion to the game developers, if they read this, is to aim smaller. Try to first make a single-player game with coop similar to Diablo first. Get some experience from those games, make money and then reinvest those money to start in mobile mmorpg games. Mobile mmorpgs make a lot of money, while keeping costs low. Sure, the graphics will look cartoonish and some of those with high-end PCs will insult them because that's what they do. But making mobile mmorpgs will teach you about optimization and online systems management, which is essential if you don't want to go bankrupt in your first year.
11:05 The jumping animation is from the ALSv4 free animation asset, it's a great, but complex motion system. Definitely not an animation to use on a player wearing full plate armor.
Bump. Dude I keep watching your old videos about elyria that is one wild story. I keep praying star citizen doesn't end up the same lmao I want that one so bad
I just assumed the assets like the characters and such were place holders to get the systems in place and then replace them later on with custom assets 🤷🏻♂️
It seems like a particularly hard time to start developing a MMORPG right now. We are finally going to be getting some big AAA productions over the next few years, so they actually have competition now. If you want to crowd source now, you have to be bringing something of a genre changer if you want my money at this point.
I know this is probably just me. But I like the aesthetic of the UI/HUD. I'm one of those 1999 EverQuest players and I just love the old, classic, RPG UI looks. Muted colors for spell gems, buffs. That stuff. Not big on flashy icons or spell effects.
They do have their vision, but it definitely feels like they don't have the skills to manage their business or actually build their vision. Saying it's a passion project and you're not looking to make money doesn't show much confidence from my perspective, I think they will squander any funds they receive.
I mean props to the devs for talking to you and asking you to look at a follow up they made and not being afraid of criticism and blocking those they disagree with. The game is still very rough obviously They definitely didn't realize how hard making a game would be. But its rare seeing them being so open to criticism and actually talking about things including admitting its all store assets
Yo Kira if you have the time, you should do some consultancy for people like this, you seem to have a pretty level headed view on how devs can approach kickstarters/PR.
@@KiraTV1 Every time you turn motion blur off, a development artist somewhere in the world wakes up with night terrors of their beautiful creation that they spent sleepless nights trying to painstakingly develop the perfect blur of motion being vaporized from existence.
At the end of the day its about them delivering, I dont care how they spend the money as long as they deliver what was promised at the end. All gaming companies big and small use purchased assets, that not a big deal as long as the end product looks unique and the promised mechanics work. If a game has a generic asset for example castle, weapons so on, whats it matter, that does not make it an asset flip; a lot of smaller companies produce those asset packs; it support the gaming industry when they buy them. There are alot of youtubers crushing small gaming companies, calling every new small independant game a asset flip, KiraTV does not seem to be doing this. These developers have some good mechanics happening i.e a reasonable multiplayer combat system and some AI interaction plus a good vision for the map enviroment. Supporting a game on kickstarter is not about buying a complete game, you buy the idea and support the games development and hope they succeed and deliver the promise. Gotta say after looking at their website, they are asking way too much for most of their pledges for a game delivery years down the road. If they aimed at a good playable game for $15 and build thier community and keep updating to make it AAA quality, they could raise the price over time.
One thing I always notice with these smaller games is the lack of a project manager. They always talk about artists, engineers etc but they need a dedicated person managing the teams day to day so it's not just cobbled together. Can tell with this game they just have a severe lack of priorities.
Thanks for the honesty you always give in your videos. We all are craving some good MMORPGs and it really sucks to see how things have been in recent times. It's always so clear what we want, but it just seems nobody listens or delivers. Really hoping we get news on something this year that will blow us away, but not holding my breath.
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
Does it look like a scam? I don't think so.
Does it look very early in development, by people who underestimated what they need to actually make a game? Definitely.
100%
I mean im not convinced that its a con.. They probably intend to try and make the game. But its pretty clearly intentionally misleading for hype (the video at least) which was a mistake and not a good start.
im indie developer, and the idea of making a mmorpg being a newcomer just terrify me... They are aiming too high I think. :S
@@KibaGVlogs I understand you. I feel the same way too. This isn't a browser-based 2D mmo. You need a lot of money just to afford the server for an mmorpg. Even if you're a good programmer and has a good systems manager in your team, the servers costs for an mmorpg alone would bankrupt you. You would need to have other consistent income such as other well-paying games to prop up the mmorpg at least for the first year because for sure you will lose money on your first year.
a bit of both. it's more like "idiots think they can make a game" mixed with "hey lets make as much money as possible" without realizing just how much WORK is needed to get any sort of game functional, let alone one of the scale they want.
None of them mentioned losing job and fiancee due to pandemic, would not back.
lol
My kickstarter page left me
Yeah, that's just straight up basic shit.
Store bought assets are used by the entire industry, in the early stages of development.
it is used as a way to test out functions, in the early stages of development - without having to spend LOADS of cash on hiring artists.
They can also be used as a way to test out different styles and whatnot.
They are a really good tool to use, and definitely are not "scammy". Good thing that you clarify that :)
My exact thoughts, it's super common especially for indie studios.
I know I use pre-made assets either free or bought until I know things will stay around as is for me to work on my own assets. Then until I have the content fleshed out and it's ready for a more or less to be on the commercial release; then I commission a professional to do whatever.
Don't wanna waste time or money on things that may or may not make it past ALPHA.
Exactly. Its a great resource for one man teams or people who are trying to learn development and don't have the skills to create those assets.
As a young game designer myself, I feel genuinely bad for this dev team, I sincerely hope they turn this around and manage to develop the game they advertised
What I don't understand is why do they always make the scope of the project so damn big???
Start with one room, one house, one castle. Perfect it, then expand. Jeeez
@@JackIsNotInTheBox yeah, thats why a lot of devs started out as modders. gives you a chance to learn all these elements in small pieces, but still have a playable product so others can try it out and give feedback.
@@JackIsNotInTheBox A dev team's first project being their massive AAA scale dream game is... well. Not smart. I, like all other game designers have a dream game. But I've only just begun my career. So I have no intention to pursue a game of that scale anytime soon. It's not realistic. Make a really great small scale game first. If you can't get people to play a quality shorter experience, possibly for free, how can you expect them to invest in a fresh dev team tackling a AAA experience? You have to prove something first. Show them you can create something great to show that money is your only limitation. Then people will back you. Asking for money and promising an example of your great work after getting the check is just empty words.
We all make mistakes, they will learn from this experience and hopefully bounce back. First step, make something original. Make it small. Show us the talent on a scale that doesn't need the money.
the judge, jury and executioner of kickstarter mmos
Lmao , at this point probably true
Lol aka a realist
The CEO of MMO
@@KiraTV1 like you said in other videos:, if you hire someone to give a review, and they have a somewhat reasonable sensibility , the money would be better spent... Like basically anyone who has some semblance of intelligence, and some indication of reality...
Developer here: The fact that they are relying on UE5 coming out and assuming it's a magical engine that will allow them to use "hyper realistic graphics"... for a indie mmo... pretty much guarantees this will be an absolute failure, with no doubt in my mind. There are countless issues with this direction:
- Porting a game from UE4 to UE5 will most likely be no easy task. However, we have no idea since there is NO info on UE5 other than trailers. We have NO idea about what this new engine will be, and this team is... already planning on porting over it? And they've never even built a game before?
- It's entirely unknown when UE5 will release. A year? Two?
- The new rendering tech UE5 uses is ABSOLUTELY not scalable for MMO's, nor is it meant to. There's a reason why the biggest, most funded, AAA MMO's do not use very high resolution models and textures, and it comes to scalability, not the engine they are using. Streaming that much information is not at all viable at this time, even if UE5's tech was absolutely magical and solved all the rendering issues. Constructing such complex models (which means sculpting, UV mapping, texturing, proxying, exporting, testing) is incredibly time-consuming and expensive. MMO's need to be able to pump out content, not take a day to make a single object. (And with a small team + no professionals, this is made 100x worse)
- They are allowing graphics to act as a bottleneck that could completely destroy their milestones... that is an absolutely insane route to go.
This shows that there is absolutely no one on the team who knows much about rendering, optimization, streaming, project management, networking, or asset pipelines. Which would be fine... if they were building a small game. There is a reason MMO's take millions of dollars of funding (and those funds going towards professional game developers with veteran status in the industry who know the tech inside and out and lead by project directors that have released games in the past, run under the eye of a publisher who has released games in the past).
Lmfao there is a 100% chance you arent a programmer or game dev. Just another entitled gamer kiddycwith opinions. UE 5 is going to be revolutionary. Just as UE 4 was. Its lighting alone is groundbreaking. Go back to mario kart on your ps5 and asking if we need fries w that. People like you are cancer
Note i learned my first language and wrote my first game before you were born and know more languages than you can name.
The website has to be remade because the company we hired failed us, we had a planned launch date and they failed to complete it on time. They handed the website over 3 days before our launch date which resulted in a huge mess. We had a huge dispute with them and they returned half the amount we paid. At this time, we just hired a new website developer and things should be modified pretty quickly. Also, apologies for not mentioned as much detailed as we wanted, the original video was over 40 minutes long so we wanted to reduce that. We will release video and news updates this week on the remainder.
we need a sticky on this comment so can ask all the questions we need.
@@Brokkoluffy Yes please, the team and myself would be more then grateful to have the opportunity to answer your questions and make things right with the community.
I'm really sorry guys but some things here just don't add up to me, not sure if it's how you're explaining it or just me missing some key context. There were issues with them giving you the site 3 days beforehand right? They've refunded you half the cost, that's great. Why exactly would you need to "remake" the website? As far as I can tell it functions mostly as a website should function, there's just the actual text content which is off, but you could edit yourself and somethings that didn't work correctly such as the pledge/amount tickers. Hardly something you would need to "remake" the website for.
Also is this a fulltime hire? Like salaried hire and not a freelancer on short term?
@@LegionTheEternalWar I think you guys would have been better off working for another year or more on this before trying to do a kickstarter. There have been far too many scams and absolute failures that people are a lot more wary, it's an unfortunate reality.
Somethings will be slightly remade, mostly a overall polish. We want to hold a long term relationship with this developer. He is on a contract that is part-time until the website is improved. Then we will determine how much work is remaining and create a new a contract based on the situation.
I think Kira should start working as freelance MMORPG Consultant for Indie studios :)
Sign me up , when do I get paid?
@@KiraTV1 - The problem is that they say 'here is our world'. It's all premade assets. What did they expect? What they should hsve done is show the game design. How do the classes work? How does combat work? Show us the skill trees. Using premade assets is fine but you can't show them to people like they're something.
But of course probably none of that work is done either. They don't have a design philosophy and they don't know how they want the game to work. All they have is a container to hold assets. Which we can't evaluate at all since we don't know if it works.
@@KiraTV1 It's pretty much video game Q/A, but you'd cover PR, first impressions and parts of game design. Some of these MMOs obviously need some help, pretty sure there would be a market for it.
@@axxurge yeah man I'm pretty clued up on how it would play out. It's something I already have done for many dev teams for free. Something I'd love to do for actual money since I have less free time now and generally have to reject helping people now days due to that. Just difficult to get your foot in the door and get paid for it , everyone wants my help for free :)
Count me in. I can tell people they aint shit in a respectful way, all day long
They are learning , no clue if that will be good enough though.
Good luck to them. *Thanks for info KiraTV. Stay safe.*
On the part about them swapping out assets with Unreal engine 5 is semi realistic. We are all awaiting to see our new constraints on polycount, etc and therefore are going to use a new workflow for our games. For the most part this is accurate and sane
Thanks, for that.
I'm sorry to say that I've heard this tune over and over at indie games cafe and it's unfortunately just a novice mistake (that I used to sing myself, too). Better equipment or technology won't make up for your lack of competence. Unreal Engine 5 won't be your miracle. Same as e.g. Blender 3 won't make people 3D artists in a night. Same as a Shuriken Linex 9 won't make you a guitarist in few hours. You can ease up on polycounts, but if you don't know hands on about sculpting, uv, shading, rigging, optimising and yada yada that won't save you. First you learnt, then you can use the technology to ease the pipeline, but first and foremost you need to know what you are looking at :). As I said, I learnt it myself and I love automations but there is no magic djin behind it. They have really cool concept art so I don't understand why they don't start NOW exercising and experimenting on it starting from the ground up with low poly.
@@MarianHevein I've been doing 3D in Maya and now Blender for almost ten years now. What did you come here to enlighten me upon? Lmao
You just backed up what I said without realizing it. Goofball :)
@@brannonharris4642 well that's good for you I suppose :) I love agreeing with people more than arguing with them :) I wasn't even trying to argue so I hope you haven't fired up for nothing! The comment was directed towards the developers of this game that clearly hope for a software update to be a saving grace. And if you are one of them, what are you waiting for before turning those amazing concepts to 3D in your Maya and/or Blender :)!
@@MarianHevein definitely not one of the devs. And I think I did a good job not being too salty in my reply.
What I hoped to communicate was that we are in agreeance on this topic. We are just approaching the response and solution from different scopes
glad someone is trying to let these guys know that theyre just doing everything wrong.
Hopefully they listen
@@KiraTV1 Someone named "Althea Damgaard" in the comment section here said they worked for Legion before. To me, what they said (if true), means these people simply do not know what they're doing. They're figuring things out as they go. It's a common "culture" in the software industry, especially among the young developers.
I feel bad for them Kira is mean lol
Hope it will help them and not hurt them
I'm not mean , I'm just realistic. If this upsets people they can elect to not watch my videos its a simple solution.
@@KiraTV1 yes you are not mean you are realistic. And people who don't like it should fuck off instead of pointlessly bitching about it in the comments :D
16:25 - to answer your question. Yes, it will be a massive difference. Just have a look at UE5 demo that was out like a year ago. But, as with my years of experience working with UE4, it is necessary to wait at least for the first hotfix. Jumping to a new version won't be that easy as some people think. Especially where you are working on a big MMO game.
Otherwise you'll have a Duke Nukem experience
They speak as if monster spawn areas outside of castles where people will congregate is some amazing feature they developed. It doesn't look like these people have any real vision for the game, and if they do, they certainly can't get it across to the public.
Really sad how they are so deathly afraid of people knowing they use premade assets. Then again gamers can be notoriously toxic...
Especially since using premade assets is not inherently a bad thing. Tons of major studios do this, just look at the quixel megascan library, and in what project it was used (projects such as monster hunter world, or pacific rim).
It allows to save on development time and cost. And if used right, you can use those assets to make something completely original.
If they had been upfront about that fact, and about the reason why, then people would have been way more accepting.
The same people mad and pressureing CPR were the same ones saying it should have been delayed longer so they could fix cyberpunk.
If I was trying to make a medieval combat game, say an mmo, I would use and abuse the everliving fuck out of premade assets. So long as the gameplay is good, it’ll be a fun game. It means I have to charge less, but over time, we can hire artists to redo everything and give it an actual art style.
Just don’t be fucking shy that you’re not an artist, and that you can’t afford an artist. The truth is always the best in the end. Be professional.
I think for early dev, premades are a neccesity but when you are unveiling your game you need to have some key assets as yours, this is their mistake.
I also think for the people who are being 'toxic' about premades, it's a numbers game, how many games have you played that are great made completely from pre-made assets, it's not many so really people like that are just playing the numbers.
Legion had only one new, interesting thing to say in their kickstarter video, and that is how PVP-ers protected the PVE-ers. I doubt that one little thing could be turned into the core of gameplay, but it's a nice, unique little thing to have. Everything else was ordinary MMORPG talk, or something that was done better elsewhere.
Hi, I was actually on this team last year and left for reasons I will not voice publicly. So the goal was to have a demo made and it would be all with premade stuff to show story flow and combat the main things. It never happened and changed more than once while I was there. I had really hoped they would figure things out after I left, but this feels like last year to me when I had tried to figure things out. And they are still talking of making that demo which should have been done as the first video and showcasing. It was to have story path and literally show the combat but the true skill tree and idea of the combat was only finally laid out in some spreadsheets and actually growing from asset stuff in October 2020.
Anyway, I was hoping Cody had learned from the Steam 2019 attempt and the little poke in July 2020 that you can easily find in the top 10 links for this game when you do a google search. I still hope they learn and take this video as proper criticism.
I think you won't be getting many good jobs in the future when your prospective employers search your name and find that you're predisposed to posting comments on social media talking shit about your former bosses and how they don't know what they're doing. After seeing this, I sure as hell wouldn't hire you regardless of skills.
@@davecarsley8773 Then you're a fucking idiot and wouldn't be in the position of hiring anyone to begin with lmfao.
@@davecarsley8773 As an indie dev who would love to hire people in the future, I'd totally hire someone who criticized their former employer, as long as it seemed justified and not unreasonable. I'd even give them bonus points if they came from a particularly shady project, or a failed project. Not like I have anything to hide, and I don't want a bunch of yes-men. I'd be seriously skeptical of anyone who _is_ against hiring someone just because they criticized a project they had previously worked on, because that shows you _do_ have something to hide. After seeing this, I sure as hell wouldn't back your project regardless of how good it looks.
Its true tho. Just dont talk shit of your former employers. Somebody would find this charming but most wont. It show lack of loyality. Thats a deadly blow for a career. Unless illegal stuff involved. Listen to me...delete youe comment and move on.
@@Kenshiroit Seriously people need to stop encouraging people to stay silent about things... the world would be a better place if more people spoke up and were honest instead of cowering in fear all the time. That's exactly the reason so much shady crap goes on and how people get away with things.
That said this is a random unverifiable comment on a random RUclips video, and RUclips comments aren't very searchable to begin with. If someone were to use this casual non-specific comment that won't even tell the full story as a way to reject someone, I don't think I could personally stomach working at a place that petty even if I was okay with the policy on blind loyalty and rejection of criticism plus whatever other shady practices they're trying to hide.
"It was decently envisioned, but it was executed with neolithic incompetence."
To answer your question, Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) is just Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) with a few new systems. Most notably Nanite (allows more detailed meshes) and Lumen (allows more realistic lighting). While these new systems are huge for large open world game devs like us, they don't change the basic challenges that developers have to overcome to make a game. In particular the cost of custom game assets. Replacing the marketplace assets shown in their game could easily cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on the quality level required. This isn't a scam, it is just basic incompetence.
Nanite is game changing fot MMOs my man.. allowing game developers to automatically and massively scale in-game art assets. This means virtualized micropolygon geometry, artists get full freedom to create as much details as the eye can see. Devs will be able to create high quality assets and UE 5 will take care of distance scaling, normal maps and a number of other things. This means creating one high quality assets instead of 5 different versions for scaling.. This is massive for MMOs. Yes its pretty much a update to UE5 but the 2 new systems are game changing.
It's not a Kira video if it's not posted at quarter past 11 at night when I'm about to go to bed and make me obligated to watch it
Sorry mate , I do try to post as early as I can but my sleep schedule atm is just wrecked
It's all good chief. Mine is too, clearly. Haha.
@@MaliceTheCommentator All us brits that have been furloughed are in that situation. 🤣
@@KiraTV1 hey its always early somewhere in the world
@@richardsmith5803 truth
Found your channel recently and love how honest and upfront you are for us mmo fans it’s a godsend keep it up my man!! Thanks for your efforts
Appreciate you my g ,thanks for the kind words
Kira = integrity.
Reliable comments from your boy George
"massive world makes zero difference if you have nothing in it" True enough, just ask Bethesda about that.
Not sure how you've flown under my radar over the years but am now a subscriber. Keep up the good work, Kira.
Thanks brother
Heh, YT recommended KiraTV for me after watching the Sarah Z video about Homestuck. Really recommend Sarah, like her style and she kinda digs deep on her topics. I also really like KiraTV take on things and became an immediate subscriber =)
these guys should use the artwork and concept and just make a tabletop rpg instead of an mmo, they neither have the money nor skill to accomplish such a feat and are just digging themselves a deeper pit everytime they try to prove the concept viable.
I love this idea
Unreal Engine 5 is supposed to have tech that allows for high detailed Environments while maintaining FPS.
Nanite (UE5)
Nanite virtualized micropolygon geometry frees artists to create as much geometric detail as the eye can see.
So they basically found a way to turn a rougness map into actually detailed geometry or did i get this completely wrong?
@@Doddlen - I'm not really sure the details of how it works but basically you are supposed to be able to use the High Detailed version of assets with millions of polies which with normal engines would bring current gaming PCs to their knees. No more need for Normal maps or anything.
@@UnityMMODevelopers Yeah, so i got it right actually. What a time to be alive :D stay safe dude
@@Doddlen 2 Minute papers, is that you?
@@dennismagnusson2141 nah sorry mate :D my ex sometimes called me the two minute men but that is a whole other story
You're one of the most interesting RUclips channels I've come across this week. Really good and no-bullshit commentary. Keep up the good work, mate!
Making a good game is 100% about the systems, not the art. Using store bought assets is the ONLY way to go for a leanly ran indie company
When the devs are happy about the party system, you know there are not enough systems here for anything revolutionary.
After watching the whole review video, we totally agree... There was a few (maybe more than a few) mistakes. We are viewing this like.... The only direction we can go is up from here... We will keep pushing strong and bring the updates. The money we required was mostly to swap out all the unreal engine assets. When it comes to creating the actual game using unreal engine marketplace assets we should have no problem continuing with them on a lower budget until we correct our mistakes and prove ourselves as developers. As for the play test, your right... no point to make a goal regarding backers. We will just release early to earn the trust and support from kind folks who share the vision and want to help make the game better and support the project.
"The only direction we can go is up from here" is rarely ever a true statement
Good luck guys.
The game looks pretty cool. However personally I'd NEVER do another Kickstarter or crowdfunded project again. Having worked on a successfully crowdfunded MMO that eventually crashed and burned after tons of bad rep. It's nearly destroyed my chances of ever having a successful game. The only way I'd even consider doing another crowdfunded project is if I get the game completely done and playable with store bought assets and just needed the funds to swap out the assets for custom ones and cost for servers to expand the servers from development servers (Cheap ones able to handle a few developers) to production servers (Capable of handling hundreds or thousands).
But good luck with your game. It's certainly one I'll be keeping an eye on.
The fact that you didn't even proof read this comment after saying you agree with his video instantly shatters my trust. You should be able to learn from your mistakes. ***you're right*** not "your right". Furthermore, your sentence structure and grammar isn't amazing (for one: "When it comes to creating the actual game" should have a comma after it, seeing that it is a preposition, and the rest of that sentence is run on)
Apologies on the grammar, if you are passionate about writing you should consider joining our team, we are currently looking to bring a person on who can proof read everything before it goes out, my personal passion is related to game design. Everyone has their niche and interests that is why a solid team is so important. We work together to make up for each others weaknesses. Feel free to get in contact if you are interested.
Now that UE5 is in early access - it's THE deal, yes. But lower end PC's like mine (GTX960) won't be able to play at higher settings, unless a GTX 1080 counts as low-end, as that's the min requirement to run the demo template :D Also it's early access, and Epic are advising against using it for production projects, so it's probably still a few months before it's fully ready.
Also the more technical parts of the 3D workflow are still going to be there, so it's not like the engine will magically fix everything.
Great video! Thanks for covering more of this game👍 im excited to see where the development goes.
I don't understand why indie developers always try to make the 'next big' mmorpg. If AAA companies can't do it, it is unlikely they can. Why don't just pick niche idea and build around that, rather then building super complex stuff that never gets finished? Look at what happened to FPS - PUBG, Tarkov, all nieche ideas built into great games. For example just give us instanced questing, where several players need to fulfill competing objectives. I believe this could be super fun if done well, with much less work required.
I think your assessment and comments are spot on KiraTV. I would add that I agree that game dev's should focus on developing core systems and getting the design straight before focusing too much attention on aesthetics but ideally this should be done first and foremost in a project if you are going in front of public asking for money and you STILL haven't got those things figured out and the preliminary parts of those systems are not in place... your getting ahead of yourselves completely.
Ideally one should already have a working prototype version of their game systems internally where they've worked out kinks and tested that their ideas don't actually suck before starting to build a complete world in which to present those ideas. Combine that together with a world and then polish it up a whole lot and THEN you present yourself to the gaming communities and ask for support. Otherwise your just asking for people to pay in the hopes that you'll just figure it out along the way and it will all fall into place.
As for UE5, its not a silver bullet solution. And there is a lot of assumptions and a lot of hype/hope by many Indie Dev's based on having seen Tech-Demo's from Epic. We really need to work with it first before making claims as to what it will offer. It also will not fundamentally change the core of what makes a game fun and how those are built in UE5 as those will largely remain unchanged from UE4. While it will potentially lower the production costs and difficulties faced in using hi-fi assets in a game project there is no certainty as to how much will change from the traditional processes yet, also to claim it will allow low end machines to handle hi-fi complex worlds is a big assumption that overly simplifies things as it is not a one size fits all problem when it comes to game design. I can create a game loop that bricks any machine out there by being stupid in my approach and it could have very little aesthetics, or fill the scene full of niagara particles effects, bad design will still cause problems for lower end machines no matter what engine is being used.
Lastly while they are correct in that using premade assets from any 3rd party brings its share of problems, this won't change when they make their own custom assets. The time/cost involved in creating and fixing those will simply be their own now, and having their own high fidelity source material just gives them more control to address them and if done with certain tools can even be corrected parametrically in some cases. UE5 will ideally change and simplify the process/time involved in delivering assets efficiently and getting them working in Engine more seamlessly but creating source material will still be time consuming and the result in the end will still largely be dependent on developer skill and experience.
As someone who uses Unreal 5 daily at work.... No. It isn't a magic solution to everything. It doesn't make low-end PCs able to magically play at ultra settings. It just allows the scale of things to be much more immense and allows us to create extremely level of detail on the same hardware. Still not magic, it has to be optimized like any game, but it certainly gives us the ability to make bigger, more detailed worlds compared to what Unreal 4 achieved.
The main issue with him talking about it in the context of this game... Unreal 5 has basically no application in MMORPGs such as this. Unless you are trying to make Star Citizen or Ashes of Creation (and even Ashes is kinda using it more as a marketing hype thing)... a game like this with low levels of detail won't really utilize UE5's most important features.
Lots of devs these days use easy asset creation tools (speed tree) or megascan props from Quixel. It sounds like these devs just took example maps meant for asset showcases and prototyping, but they tried to raise money with it. Huge red flag. UE5 is a big leap forward, but it won't stop them from having bad judgment.
This is why companies/development studios have project managers and public relations. Lets be honest, 9 times out of 10 video game crowdfunding that predominately uses store bought assets never transition over to original work. Crowdfunding and Kickstarter has turned into "Lets pay these guys to hopefully learn how to develop games." rather than actually funding competent developers to create a product.
Good luck to you guys, really hope you can get on top of bringing in some original assets to at least get your vision and style on display. Kira thanks again for an awesome video!
Glad you addressed the "scam". A scam is an explicit intent to defraud, conceal and ultimately not deliver the value promised. That's not the same as mismanagement, making mistakes, or being flat-out incompetent. I think a lot of failures and mistakes are due to passionate enthusiasts taking on an effort they don't have the experience managing. Being a genius designer, developer, artist, et al. even banded together doesn't mean they have the skills to manage a product, must less the project or a company. I wish all of the authentic believers and their efforts well but the inexperience in product management and business shows so early.
Bad sign when I see 'Lighting needs to be rebuilt' error on screen during anything marketing related. And the real scary thing is the code base assets I can see them using. I promise this game will not be released in this state as anything but a demo of a story or idea
PR/marketing consultant in the making ahah , love these videos .
Anyone else not really care if games use store-bought assets? I mean, even major studios do it all the time for sound-why is it such a huge deal if you've seen the same trees or item/ability icons or whatever in a different game? Custom art has got to be a *massive* expense...it wouldn't surprise me if it was up to 50% of development cost. It makes perfect sense that games not produced by major studios would use store-bought models/textures/icons/etc (or start with/build around different code packs). I remember when Trion added some third-party cloak physics to Rift; nobody lost their shit and bitched them out for not developing their own cloth physics.
@KiraTV You asked dev for an opinion at 16:30 so here is mine. That's also to the dev's directly.
What they showed here looks worse than the trailer they made for kickstarter, but IS better. We would not have the asset flip argument underneath the previous videos if they showed this, as this clearly shows they have a working prototype that is running on multiplayer. I can see ALSv4 animation system, I can see some particle packs and other marketplace assets - but they serve the purpose of representing what's going on, and as long as maps are not copy-paste of example maps, it's all good. Marketplace assets often are not very good - but you can still arrange a castle from your concept arts from them. So again - my concern about "assety flippery" aspect of the project was not using marketplace assets, but literally cutting the marketplace presentation videos of those assets. shots used 1:1 from the cameras placed in the demo scene for them. That was a lazy and cheeky move.
Now to address UE5... that's it's coming soon and it will be heaven. I'm sorry but what the hell are you talking about? Yes - UE5 has a special LOD system that allows to import even raw meshes from zbrush into the game and use them in the best quality possible - but did you consider that a single zbrush statue used in the ue5 presentation was just one statue as such model is around 3 gigabytes of disk space? and you want the entire game to not use lower poly count meshes? good luck with that. Also, UE5 will be in preview for the first YEAR. And even I will try to learn it I will not port any working project I am working on right now to it - as it won't be as easy as you think.
the worst part of what devs are saying is trying to take off responsibility for making the game and putting it on epic games. when something happens then we will do something. You know what.. On ue4 store I saw this incredible pack called "landscape architect" - a voxel plugin from the creator of dungeon architect. a top-notch asset. one of the best plugins out there. I was waiting for it, and it was necessary for one of my projects.. so as soon as it will be out I will make my game! And it was due to come out in half a year....... 5 years ago. So you say - we haven't put on effort, as what... your work, maps, models, etc - would not transfer to ue5 some magically but all your gaming code will? I hate it when someone is making excuses that they are waiting for a technological breakthrough that will make their lives easier... allegedly. But we're not really sure. and we don't know when.
What you showed here was a game. Start making it THE game. it seems you can! So don't waste money on bullshit pr, websites, and stuff - and make the damn game. Oh, and Quixel library for free with ue4 exists. -_- so not every single brick and rock has to be hand sculpted for an excessive amount of money.
p.s. no one LITERALLY NO ONE cares about your website. get discord community in check, and social media to communicate updates. Noone will visit your website to check updates every now and then. Also for websites: WIX.COM exists.
Hey Kira, I came back to watch this video again after initially watching it months ago. I'm curious to know if you'd consider possibly following up with these guys and doing another video? I think out of most "Kickstarter" games you've covered, this one seems to be an interesting one to stay up to date on. Cheers!
I'm curious myself, even 8 months after the original comment
@@christianlewis6789 there's nothing going on with their YT channel, they haven't put out a new video in years.
Unreal has been making huge changes in the right direction this past year so it's theoretically a realistic statement.
But there is a whole lot more to making an MMO than the graphics engine.
@@roqsteady5290 I agree
"Players can enter the city,
They can use services,
Monsters spawn outside,
Players are drawn to monsters."
-2021
So grateful you made that mortal Online 2 video bruh, my group of friends are about to dive in!
Thats awesome man , hope you at least have some fun
likewise and that project was also utilizing ue4 assets but they actually used them in an acceptable way. They also have the experience to make a game so that helps a lot!
The combat in that game looks god awful
I’ll pray for you
It's coming up to 12 years now since the advent of Kickstarter, but here we see yet another example of where the firm hand of a publisher is sorely missed.
It's probably a blessing in disguise that their fundraiser failed so badly. Could you imagine what they'd do with a couple of millions to waste?
MMOs are like the most complex and expensive to support genre of game you could choose to make. Do we really need Indie MMOs? Why are people backing these projects? Even if they deliver an amazing game it will probably fail just because not enough people will play it to pay to keep the servers running & hire mods to deal with player behavior etc.
I am trying to figure out how to articulate this. If the developers read this, I am going to try to be constructive.
It's not about just being able to make a competent MMO anymore.
The gaming industry is in a similar place to where the music industry went when everyone and their 12 year old brother could pirate Fruity Loops or Ableton and download 17 different VSTs and drum packs.
That means players are subjected to a torrential downpour of alpha footage, beta footage, early access footage, cinematic trailers, demo videos, first impressions, review videos, coming soon videos, reveal trailers, patch videos, update videos, teaser videos.... for every single variety and genre of games, coming from every direction, from Triple A huge budget projects to the smallest indie games.
New games, sequel games, prequel games, remake games, HD re-release games, DLCs, addons, expansions, spiritual successors, it literally never ends.
You have to understand from our perspective, how desensitized that makes us. How difficult it has become to keep the attention of a significant playerbase when they can't go near RUclips or Steam without being showered with this.
What that means for you as a developer is that just making a game competently, or having a passion for a genre and wanting to make a game in it, that's just not enough.
This is what their website says the game features:
- castle building system
- gathering
- hunting
- crafting
- PvP
- raids
- war
- a player-driven economy
I mean.... guys. I almost feel dumb having to actually say this, you have to know better than to think this is anything even close to a selling point or reason to catch the attention of MMO fans in 2021. Especially given the climate of the industry we're in, as stated above.
You can use storebought assets. You can have generic graphics. You can use tired aesthetics. This isn't the problem, and it's not the reason your game is just not cutting it. The reason is because you are aiming your sights on literally forgettable and mediocre.
The only way to break through in this industry nowadays is to offer an idea that stands out. Something that drives the industry forward. You can use old fashioned, conventional mechanics, but if you don't build something wholly unique on them, you're just another page that people click for 5 seconds in the Steam store.
Take Valheim for example. There's a reason that game has taken the gaming world by storm. It's not the graphics, it's not the building or the crafting, it's not every single aspect of procedural generation based minecraft-likes recycled in a Viking setting.
The reason that game caught so much attention and praise was because it finally broke through the wall that so many games over the past 10 years since Minecraft just couldn't seem to figure out how to do. They found a way to give you everything Minecraft does, but make it feel like you are running through a world that was hand crafted beforehand for a planned single player experience. They somehow figured out how to combine the excitement and action and progression that an open world RPG gives players, with the absolute freedom and unpredictable "what's beyond that hill over there?" feeling that Minecraft and similar titles brought to the scene.
So the point is basically... reach for something higher. Do something that hasn't been done, even if you stack it on a foundation of mechanics that we've seen plenty of times. Make players say "I've never thought of that, that's awesome". Make developers say "I wish I thought of that first." It doesn't take eye popping Triple A visuals or a world full of finely crafted doodads and original assets. It only takes brilliance and imagination.
We've seen more well done games that stay within conventional boundaries come and go now, more than we can even remember, every single week. We want to see the boundaries broken.
They need to hire a manager, not an artist or a web dev. They come off as a bunch of devs/programmers who are used to being told what to do, but now that they're having to set their own goals and deadlines they're just floundering or dicking around. That's not uncommon when it comes to dev passion projects-they don't want other people telling them what to do. That's why they're so against getting private funding-it would come with deadlines and conditions and obligations.
Everytime I think my own MMO engine is "getting close" I watch one of Kira's brutal (but honest) reviews of indies doing foolish indie things and slap myself. I've got a lot of work to do. :) Thanks for the content as always sir.
@KiraTV DEV here: Unreal 5 currently is still in Early Access, which typically means its not ready for production just yet. So does he know WHEN completed UE5 will be launched and has his Legion development schedule is built around having the full/complete version of UE5? most likely not.
While Unreal engine 5 does mean lower end PCs can run higher graphic settings and more complex assets, those assets still have to be made and filling a game with custom assets of that high quality is super expensive
Ue5 is amazing but just because you have ue5 doesn't mean you can make custom assets for free or easier. You still have to be good with 3d modeling and takes alot of time. They honestly should've tried to a non mmo game first to get people excited about the world and also so people can trust that you can make a game and finish it
I oddly learn lessons in business whenever I watch these MMO's die. Melancholic
What the UE5 release does, as far as I understood, is making it easier to have a huge amount of polygons/triangles in one scene. They also introduced a method to render 3D scenes as 2D images on your screen, thus using a lot less performance.
But: this was already possible before. Developers just had to write it themselves. If done right it'll most likely still be better to do it yourself, since all out of the box tools in UE are, while easy to use, not very performant.
For an indie studio this will most likely be very helpful. But we'll see if it'll be performant enough to be played on low end systems.
Can always rely on the boi for excellent content. Keep up the great work!
These guys have gotten into the trap of trying to Run before they can walk, their priority's are in the wrong places wasting money thinking they need a fancy website to look legit.
It's like if someone wanted to start steaming, they go out thinking they need to buy two high tech PCs and the best webcam and microphone but not really knowing what to do with that equipment, running off ahead instead of starting slow and building a sturdy foundation....
Why do these tiny small teams aims so damn high? Why don't they try making a smaller scale single player or co-op game to get some experience and credibility before trying to make the hardest game genre out there?
The moment I hear "This is all pure passion, we're not doing it to make money" is the money it all becomes BS to me.
Kira getting spooked by the discord noises the same time as I was checking my own discord really made this video for me. Love the channel mate, just discovered you recently and have been binging all your kickstarter videos!
Thanks for the great content Kira.
Thanks for commenting brother
Does motion blurr lessen performance burden? Otherwise I don't get why even add something like that.
Edit: Tbh even with all the good and genuine intentions, I don't see this succeeding in a time where New World, Ashes of Creation, Mortal Online 2 and many other "giants" roam the MMO edges and are nearing the landing (release) bay.
I'm still going to keep this game on my list of games to check in on every now and then to see if progress is being made. They had some ideas I liked, but definitely not putting any money towards this one lol.
Look, son! A DDO player
you have your opinion and dont follow the hype. thats great. greetings from germany
Thanks man , good to see you here :)
In Germany we say Ehrenmann!
I am apparently a certified in Germany mmorpg expert according to meinmmo. This is an accolade I will accept.
This whole video felt like that scene in It's always sunny where the uncle goes "we're lawyers"
Also I'd like to ask, what is their overall idea for the game? They are passionate about it, fair, but do they want to make "the same" but for them? Meaning, they just want an mmorpg not tab targeted and... yeh castle sieges etc, these are all VERY COOL features, but its not unique to them.
Are they gonna have complex crafting (akin to mortal online), gathering, trading, base building, whats the goal? To go wow-style and get the best gear just because (outdated concept imho) whats the end goal for the player? Because playing for the pvp/pve with castle sieges is already done.
its not wrong to make another "more of the same", but don't expect it to flourish and spread like wildfire in that case.
Going from UE4 to 5 is not trivial. Some things will go across seamlessly, like certain visual assets but there are many pitfalls. Dynamic materials (things that glow, particle systems, etc) have differences that can even crash the engine if you simply try to move them from one to another. There are problems with Interfaces becoming invalid between classes- not hard to fix but still a stumbling block. Another big issue is simply training- there are tons of videos concerning just about anything you can think of in UE4, but not so much for 5. This is where the pitfalls reach out and slap you- following a UE4 tutorial but something was changed in UE5. One of the most amazing things about UE5 is it can handle what effectively infinitely complex visual assets yet you cant copy+paste variables from one blueprint to another (sorry if that is lost on you- its a visual programming system)
I think thats the best way anyone had ever put it. You gotta pick lies and flashy or bare bones and honest.
Hoping they can make something worth talking about in the coming months. Or am I alone thinking that?
I hope they do too mate
New subscriber, I like you Kira, and I respect your opinion bro.
You put into words, what most are thinking, if that makes sense!
Thanks for the videos!
Thats so nice to hear man thank you , enjoy the content
If a company isn't big enough to make an MMO without relying on kickstarter or crowdfunding, they shouldn't be bothering and should try something smaller in scope that they can actually deliver on. Proper MMO's cost hundreds of millions to create, and require huge teams.
I understand this sentiment however I disagree. "Proper mmorpgs" is a really weird subjective. What is proper ? Black desert for example cost a few million dollars , I think they got most the game done under 1 mill. Albion online was done under a few million. There have been ones over the years that cost a couple mill or less and did very well for themselves. Its all about scale as well as game design. What you are talking about is likely themepark games right ? The ones that require you to build out the entire game with content tailored around players going from point a to point b , with thousands of quests , dialogue, storyline, dungeons and raids with balanced mechanics , a gear treadmill etc etc. That isn't all mmorpgs. That is a sub genre , themepark games which do cost more to make for sure. This isn't that , nor are most the crowdfunded games and thus they don't have the same requirements.
I will say though I do agree companies with very little money should make something small first and then use profits to make something better. Just like the devs behind starbase did. But I do think we need indie studios and crowdfunding to get interesting titles , people just need to have more common sense on both sides of the equation.
Regarding creating the MMORPG programming, we have enough. The highest costs are related to changing out all the terrible animations and unreal engine marketplace assets. We can deliver a MMO using 100% unreal engine marketplace assets, it just is not the ideal outcome.
This is the first thing they teach you in the dev. Never go for the big mmorpg open world Skyrim GTA clone etc. I guess with how shitty the mmorpg genre is people get lost in the frustration/excitement of creating one.
@@KiraTV1 Albion online had a large game Dev team and were privately funded.
@@LegionTheEternalWar hey I'm not a programmer so forgive my ignorance on this but in the video you say you want to get the gameplay down before the assets as ue5 is coming out soon but surely it would be easier to port of art than it would be to port over the development?
By "crowd-funding build" I assume they mean the build of the game they made for the crowd-funding project. At the beginning they said they just added the Archer class, but the armor isn't in yet. I would assume that is because they are using an older build of the game.
As well; "The jumping animations looks gimpy" - That is the ALS animation system. I agree, the basic animations are not very good imo either.
Also, no, UE5 is NOT going to allow low-end PCs to play on higher graphic settings. For people who have mid-tier and high-tier PCs, the new systems they've added are amazing and are going to allow for all the hyper realism, and all of that cool stuff they talked about. However, a lot of it won't work in VR, and it is still intensive to run, it is just a vast improvement in technology.
Their priorities are mixed up. What's the big deal behind the website? A solid build should be key right now.
Using premade assets is fine, but then I do wanna see what your core mechanics are gonna be, if you can't show me what your core gameplay is gonna look like even if it's janky then you can't get my support.
Tbh idgaf about how it looks when you just wanna communicate your vision for the game, it can be a bunch of blocky low poly models with very basic texturing done to them for all I care. Gameplay is the most important, if you wanna show graphics then show concept art or 3D models that you've already made or an environmental slice.
The characters and armors are done by an in-house artist.
The concepts of the world are shown in the video, it was just hard to find a proper level artist.
@@fedayeen_revolutionist K. But I said I don't really care about any of that if someone wants to pitch a game to me, they can literally show me cubes.
I said that I wanna see something the resembles the core mechanics that they have in mind. They don't show that, but it's the most important thing.
Kira tellin it how it is. I would definitely like to see how this game develops though I have looked into the team a little and they seem to be pretty passionate about it. I really hope they find the independent funding they need to make it good
Keep up the videos. Even though I never really play a lot of these MMOs, I do appreciate keeping up with the industry through your insight.
They did have the game open to everyone in 2019. Had very little in it and I think most people would login for a few minutes and then you wouldn't hear from them again for 1-2 years, like me =P.
Having the game open to everyone and having no NDA can backfire. An example of this was Book of Travels. It initially had no NDA. People were streaming it ... and it hurt = ). I remember I was yelling at a rock for 15 minutes and that was the peak of the stream. They slapped NDA on it within 24 hours.
I think it's important to show your overall vision of the game. I personally don't even think you necessarily have to show exactly where the game's at, like with Ashes. What's mot important is that you provide security that the investment into a game will not fail. Ashes' security was Steven's personal money. The game was privately funded by its creator and it only needed additional funding to expand the scope of the game.
I went into Legion because I've been in their discord since 2019 and I know that it's not a scam and that they'll eventually get it done, even if it's at a smaller scope, lower quality, and takes a lot longer. They're one of the most passionate and open MMORPG indie teams that you're going to find across all of the indie MMORPG projects that are currently active.
Take it from me, I'm in almost every indie MMORPG project discord. They're also not necessarily professionals. They're not industry veterans. They're not necessarily developers. Astaria's being made by a high school history teacher =O. Of course they're going to make mistakes. They aren't like a full actual company. You saw the entire "company" in this video, and they all work part time and are mostly unpaid.
They've been having funding issues since 2019 and nobody's been able to convince Cody to go into kickstarter or indiegogo.
But then when they do have an NDA people accuse them of trying to hide the truth of their game. The Gaming community is incredibly toxic.
Definitely feels like they are trying to defend their project instead of marketing it.
Hits the nail on the head with the website thing. If that's really how it went down.. How in the world do you run a company and not be bothered to look over your own website before it goes live? Couldn't even be bothered. Well, they know now. Good luck to them.
KiraTV you earned a sub from me. Keep doing this. Great job.
Appreciate that man
I don't play MMORPG but subscribed and I'm enjoying the channel a lot. Especially this type of videos.
Btw, did I miss it, or didn't they say what was their plan in case they don't get enough money to make the game?
They didn't mention it at all, a point I brought up with them. Hopefully they will publicly put something out soon.
I'm glad you're enjoying the content mate!
@@KiraTV1 to be "fair", I don't think they can really answer that question correctly unless they say they have private investment lined-up if needed. Otherwise they are just gonna dig themselves into a whole. I was just curious of what their plan was.
Like you and many other people commenting, I think they are probably just not that competent and dont fully grasp what it takes to finish this project and are simply overlooking very important stuff. I bet they don't really have a plan. They thought making this video was gonna be enough and hope to get enough crowdfunding to get to the snowball point of funding. But you can't just say you gonna explain something THAT important and then just ignore it and think everyone isn't just gonna notice.
In my opinion, they're just decent people who overestimated themselves and underestimated the difficulty of mmorpg. MMORPGs are definitely not a game you should make as you first few games. I've made 2 games so far for my games design classes and mmorpgs absolutely scares me. You need a lot of money to make mmorpgs. That is assuming even that you can handle the intricacies of online gaming. Not shitting on their parade, and I admire that they're motivated to try, but this is probably beyond their capabilities.
My suggestion to the game developers, if they read this, is to aim smaller. Try to first make a single-player game with coop similar to Diablo first. Get some experience from those games, make money and then reinvest those money to start in mobile mmorpg games. Mobile mmorpgs make a lot of money, while keeping costs low. Sure, the graphics will look cartoonish and some of those with high-end PCs will insult them because that's what they do. But making mobile mmorpgs will teach you about optimization and online systems management, which is essential if you don't want to go bankrupt in your first year.
11:05 The jumping animation is from the ALSv4 free animation asset, it's a great, but complex motion system. Definitely not an animation to use on a player wearing full plate armor.
Honestly, the combat looks better than half the action combat RPGs on the market right now.
Bump. Dude I keep watching your old videos about elyria that is one wild story. I keep praying star citizen doesn't end up the same lmao I want that one so bad
Fingers crossed man
I just assumed the assets like the characters and such were place holders to get the systems in place and then replace them later on with custom assets 🤷🏻♂️
Asset stores exist for a reason, though? I never understood that point.
It seems like a particularly hard time to start developing a MMORPG right now. We are finally going to be getting some big AAA productions over the next few years, so they actually have competition now. If you want to crowd source now, you have to be bringing something of a genre changer if you want my money at this point.
I know this is probably just me. But I like the aesthetic of the UI/HUD. I'm one of those 1999 EverQuest players and I just love the old, classic, RPG UI looks. Muted colors for spell gems, buffs. That stuff. Not big on flashy icons or spell effects.
They do have their vision, but it definitely feels like they don't have the skills to manage their business or actually build their vision. Saying it's a passion project and you're not looking to make money doesn't show much confidence from my perspective, I think they will squander any funds they receive.
I really hope they succeed, if they are genuine.
I mean props to the devs for talking to you and asking you to look at a follow up they made and not being afraid of criticism and blocking those they disagree with.
The game is still very rough obviously
They definitely didn't realize how hard making a game would be.
But its rare seeing them being so open to criticism and actually talking about things including admitting its all store assets
The only question I have is what was censored?
First thing that comes up when you search for them is Limbo eternal War, which actually got $300k instead. Very telling.
Yo Kira if you have the time, you should do some consultancy for people like this, you seem to have a pretty level headed view on how devs can approach kickstarters/PR.
Just noticed I have motion blur on in Valheim. It's really subtle unlike most games.
Yeah it wasn't as bad , still absolutely fuck motion blur though
@@KiraTV1 Every time you turn motion blur off, a development artist somewhere in the world wakes up with night terrors of their beautiful creation that they spent sleepless nights trying to painstakingly develop the perfect blur of motion being vaporized from existence.
At the end of the day its about them delivering, I dont care how they spend the money as long as they deliver what was promised at the end. All gaming companies big and small use purchased assets, that not a big deal as long as the end product looks unique and the promised mechanics work. If a game has a generic asset for example castle, weapons so on, whats it matter, that does not make it an asset flip; a lot of smaller companies produce those asset packs; it support the gaming industry when they buy them. There are alot of youtubers crushing small gaming companies, calling every new small independant game a asset flip, KiraTV does not seem to be doing this. These developers have some good mechanics happening i.e a reasonable multiplayer combat system and some AI interaction plus a good vision for the map enviroment. Supporting a game on kickstarter is not about buying a complete game, you buy the idea and support the games development and hope they succeed and deliver the promise.
Gotta say after looking at their website, they are asking way too much for most of their pledges for a game delivery years down the road. If they aimed at a good playable game for $15 and build thier community and keep updating to make it AAA quality, they could raise the price over time.
One thing I always notice with these smaller games is the lack of a project manager. They always talk about artists, engineers etc but they need a dedicated person managing the teams day to day so it's not just cobbled together. Can tell with this game they just have a severe lack of priorities.
Once again m8 your my goto guy thanx again gr8 video always honest review.
Haven't finished the video yet but damn does that intro screen scream Valheim lol.
Thanks for the honesty you always give in your videos. We all are craving some good MMORPGs and it really sucks to see how things have been in recent times. It's always so clear what we want, but it just seems nobody listens or delivers. Really hoping we get news on something this year that will blow us away, but not holding my breath.