Kickstarting Development With a Whole New Spin
In a gaming community heavily saturated with numerous successful and problem-ridden MMO’s, hearing that a new one is on the horizon is almost white noise. With both pay to play and the freemium models both holding weight, one new contender into the fray is Crowfall, developed by ArtCraft.
Originally announced in January of 2015, the game soon opened its doors to the masses by looking for development funding via Kickstarter. Since then, the game has changed and grown tremendously and is a moment by moment, real-time look at how player support and shake a game to its very core.
Crowfall is taking what players know and love about the traditional MMO and spinning it with an RTS flare that keeps player’s characters progressing, but the world constantly changing.
Finding Support from Player Funding
Crowfall - Game Overview
Since closing the Kickstarter campaign in March of 2015, the team at ArtCraft saw their $800k goal surpassed beyond their wildest expectations. Totaling out at $1,766,205, the developers immediately knew that interest in their described “Throne War Simulator” of an MMO was present and that players were eager to see the game bloom.
Since that time, numerous alpha tests have taken place, founder support packs have been created for purchase and funding has been open ever since. Currently on the game’s website, the top of the page shows a number of those who have donated as well as the total funding for the game and when the next test phase will take place. As it stands now, ArtCraft has seen its total funding over $12 million and counting. With more funding coming to the game, the more the developers can use those funds to further develop and improve it -all at the cause of player contribution. It’s a surprisingly successful way to sustain Crowfall’s creation and give players an exact view as to where their donations are going.
With success stories like Crowfall, it will not be a surprise to see more development-heavy games like it fallow in its footsteps with Kickstarter and player contributions.
An early version of Crowfall’s character creator before a change was recently made to open up multiple architypes to multiple races -all thanks to player funding.
With More Funding, Comes More Development
As seen in the video below, development for Crowfall is at an all time high. With constant player alpha tests and more funding coming in every day, the team at ArtCraft is able to continue to do more with the game because more people donate to it.
One of these major and recent changes, as discussed in the video below, changed the entire system for character options. Originally, specific archetypes were locked to a specific race. Now, thanks to player funding, the team has implemented a brand new system that allows these archetypes to be played by one of the many races found in the game. This opens up tons of new player options for exactly how they want to adventure in the world of Crowfall.
Another, yet also substantial cause from the total amount of funding, is a graphical update for the game that will keep its now familiar looks while improving on it in every way.
While Crowfall is still a ways away, it’s this player to developer growth of a game that will help it succeed in the future because supporters will know exactly what they are getting into before it even launches.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6wFLBnTA9s (Race / Class Update)
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