Ex-Mythic Boss: Camelot Unchained Is Not a Dark Age Sucessor

[Andy Chalk]

Ex-Mythic Boss: Camelot Unchained Is Not a Dark Age Sucessor

Mythic Entertainment co-founder Mark Jacobs has some surprising things to say about the heritage of his new project, the RvR-focused MMO Camelot Unchained.

Mark Jacobs is best known to massively-multiplayer gamers as the co-founder of Mythic Entertainment and designer of the fantasy MMO Dark Age of Camelot. He left the company in June 2009 after EA merged it with BioWare, but he hasn't left the game development business and is in fact in the midst of Kickstarting a new MMO called Camelot Unchained. Yet in spite of the name and the focus on Realm vs. Realm battles - the ongoing three-way war between Albion, Hibernia and Midgard that it shares with Dark Age of Camelot - Jacbos insists that it's not any kind of follow-up.

"Frankly, if I wanted to raise more money with our Kickstarter, it might have been better to say the game is a spiritual successor, to promise PvE, and to do the whole 'wink wink' thing at EA," Jacobs told Warcry. "Instead, I've done the exact opposite because I think that it's important for people not to regard this game as Dark Age of Camelot 2.0, but rather as one with its own unique world and backstory."

"This game isn't a spiritual successor to Dark Age of Camelot or a sequel/prequel. On the other hand, we are using some of the same public domain legends/tales that I choose to use for Dark Age of Camelot, but this time, with a rather massive twist," he said.

That "twist" is a cataclysmic event that pierced the veil between dimensions, unleashing "a nightmarish mix of both legends and horrors upon our world" and changing it in very dramatic and unexpected ways. "Blowing up the world that could have served as the backdrop for a spiritual successor to Dark Age of Camelot is a pretty good indicator that I have no intention of misleading anyone," Jacobs added.

It looks like a lot of MMO fans are just fine with that: Less than a week after it launched, the Camelot Unchained Kickstarter [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained] is almost halfway to its $2 million goal.

Source: Warcry [http://www.warcry.com/news/view/123133-Ex-Mythic-Head-Explains-Why-Camelot-Unchained-Isnt-the-Spiritual-Successor-to-DAoC]

[http://www.warcry.com/news/view/123133-Ex-Mythic-Head-Explains-Why-Camelot-Unchained-Isnt-the-Spiritual-Successor-to-DAoC]

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[Gylnne]

Looking forward to this game. I am so tired of the "easy mode" MMO's in the industry. Bringing back a challenge will be a refreshing change.

 

[Malloren]

I have been longing for an MMORPG to get back to the roots of the genre with deep community interaction and interdependence. Add on some rich crafting, the ability to build structures, and some fierce RvR and I'm in!

 

[Brent Middleton]

I have been following this project since it was announced and CSE and Mark Jacobs started releasing ?Foundational Principles?. (FP?s)

I love the fact that Mark has decided to use Kickstarter this time around vs. a traditional publisher, and made it perfectly clear that the game he laid out in the FP?s is what he was going to strive to deliver. Certain points are not negotiable, which he could not have guaranteed if he had used a traditional publisher.

As Curtis Miller said, niche markets have been over looked, and we are one of them. This game, CSE and Mark Jacobs have my full support, I am proud to back this project.

 

[Ishal]

I can hear the shrieking and howling of the hardcore RvR players now.

Wonder if when this finally hits they'll complain about it as avidly as they do with anything else, oh well.

Hope it turns out good for them.

 

[Mkilbride]

AWesome.

Just pledged 110$, most I've ever done for a game.

This really strikes me as what we've been waiting for.

 

[KaZuYa]

Really? I mean really? I was a great fan of DAoC and up to the ToA update it was probably the best PvP MMO ever made and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Then Warhammer Online was announced, a spiritual successor to DAoC but set in the awesome Warhammer Universe I almost wet myself. Then came podcast after podcast promising content which never made it to release which Mythic had no intention of releasing, broken content unbalanced classes and some classes nerfed into extinction and everything that made DAoC great was gone, The 3 way RvRvR was reduced to 2 so any tactical play by smaller populations was gone and the zerg ruled the day. The relic system was gone, pointless city raids which sides actively avoided each other so they could farm empty instances and the big PvP lakes were replaced with poorly laided out strips of pvp areas where you couldn't do anything to avoid the zerg so it ended in camping empty zones with your zerg hoping your VP ticked over first.

Im really not surprised Mark Jacobs wants to distance this from being DAoC 2.0 because that what WH:Online was meant to be and for Mythic to be given such a rich lore filled world already set out for them and with EA's money and to fail so badly doesn't feel me with much hope with his "New" project but I guess time will tell and if he proves me wrong and creates something as good as DAoC I will be glad but I don't hold out much hope.

 

[Hagi]

I'm quite skeptical to be honest...

I quite clearly remember Mark Jacobs and all his excitement for Warhammer Online and well... yeah... look where that ended...

But we'll see... Maybe there'll be another Warhammer Fantasy MMO as well...

 

[Aramis Night]

After what this guy pulled with WAR, I will never trust anything that ever comes out of his mouth. I couldn't despise this guy more if he was guilty of molesting large children. Not only was he a part of abusing a great IP with so much potential but he blatantly lied about things he knew for a fact were not in the game or going to be. I implore you all to not waste a penny on this. You will regret it, just like most of us WAR players did.

 

[Therumancer]

After what this guy pulled with WAR, I will never trust anything that ever comes out of his mouth. If there was any justice in the world his husband would be causing him to suffer from an anal prolapse nightly. I couldn't despise this guy more if he was guilty of molesting large children. Not only was he a part of abusing a great IP with so much potential but he blatantly lied about things he knew for a fact were not in the game or going to be. I implore you all to not waste a penny on this. You will regret it, just like most of us WAR players did.

Pretty much my thoughts, I've donated to a lot of Kickstarters for RPG products and such to support the ideas at play. This game sounds like something I might support on paper, but I simply do not trust the people involved. I myself felt totally burned with WAR.

I'll also say that I suspect that The Old Republic might have suffered from Mythic's involvement since they were allegedly brought in to "help" with the project due to their "expertise".

That said, I wish the people who donate to this luck, and hope they don't wind up regretting it.

Right now for upcoming MMOs I largely have my eyes on "Elder Scrolls Online", and despite NCsoft's enviroment I like a lot of what "Wildstar" claims it's going to do. Of course how either of those games will turn out remains to be seen. To be honest 90% of the time when I try an MMO nowadays I feel like I've gotten scammed, I keep hoping I'll find another WoW/SWG-like obsession before my burn out, but it generally doesn't happen. It's the height of irony that the closest has been the resurgance of "Star Trek Online" (which I am laying off of until the release of the new Romulan faction to avoid the burn out that's already been creeping up on me), which sometimes surprises me. Most recently I spent like $125 on "Defiance", love the concepts, like the game even as someone who isn't generally into shooters, but the game keeps rolling back my characters and deleting my progress, not to mention playing out it's cool tricks and gimmicsk pretty quick, more so than other MMOs I've played.

At this point though I'd imagine between the two of us (even if I'm not that offensive) I'd imagine any Escapist following this thread have been warned. Whether they will heed us or not remains to be seen. It could turn out okay,
but really I can't encourage anyone to roll those dice in good faith. It's hard enough to find a really good MMO nowadays without banking on ones like this. They keep reminding people of "DAoC" and saying "this is not a spiritual successor" to remind people of the good game they actually made, and when it was popular. Totally ignoring what
happened since.

 

[Aramis Night]

After what this guy pulled with WAR, I will never trust anything that ever comes out of his mouth. If there was any justice in the world his husband would be causing him to suffer from an anal prolapse nightly. I couldn't despise this guy more if he was guilty of molesting large children. Not only was he a part of abusing a great IP with so much potential but he blatantly lied about things he knew for a fact were not in the game or going to be. I implore you all to not waste a penny on this. You will regret it, just like most of us WAR players did.

Pretty much my thoughts, I've donated to a lot of Kickstarters for RPG products and such to support the ideas at play. This game sounds like something I might support on paper, but I simply do not trust the people involved. I myself felt totally burned with WAR.

I'll also say that I suspect that The Old Republic might have suffered from Mythic's involvement since they were allegedly brought in to "help" with the project due to their "expertise".

That said, I wish the people who donate to this luck, and hope they don't wind up regretting it.

Right now for upcoming MMOs I largely have my eyes on "Elder Scrolls Online", and despite NCsoft's enviroment I like a lot of what "Wildstar" claims it's going to do. Of course how either of those games will turn out remains to be seen. To be honest 90% of the time when I try an MMO nowadays I feel like I've gotten scammed, I keep hoping I'll find another WoW/SWG-like obsession before my burn out, but it generally doesn't happen. It's the height of irony that the closest has been the resurgance of "Star Trek Online" (which I am laying off of until the release of the new Romulan faction to avoid the burn out that's already been creeping up on me), which sometimes surprises me. Most recently I spent like $125 on "Defiance", love the concepts, like the game even as someone who isn't generally into shooters, but the game keeps rolling back my characters and deleting my progress, not to mention playing out it's cool tricks and gimmicsk pretty quick, more so than other MMOs I've played.

At this point though I'd imagine between the two of us (even if I'm not that offensive) I'd imagine any Escapist following this thread have been warned. Whether they will heed us or not remains to be seen. It could turn out okay,
but really I can't encourage anyone to roll those dice in good faith. It's hard enough to find a really good MMO nowadays without banking on ones like this. They keep reminding people of "DAoC" and saying "this is not a spiritual successor" to remind people of the good game they actually made, and when it was popular. Totally ignoring what
happened since.

I'll never forget when he went to a korean gaming convention when they were about to release WAR in korea, and he actually had the nerve to tell them flat out that they had fixed all the issues with the american release.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71r5HiLa8bA
It was the most blatant lie i've ever seen a gaming dev get away with. Only thing that comes even close is Arenanet claiming they wouldn't add a gear treadmill after establishing exotics as max tier items on release.

 

[Auron]

I'm quite skeptical to be honest...

I quite clearly remember Mark Jacobs and all his excitement for Warhammer Online and well... yeah... look where that ended...

But we'll see... Maybe there'll be another Warhammer Fantasy MMO as well...

EA's not there to meddle with it, and WAR had some completely awesome concepts until they ruined it, made levelling longer to appease wow fans, included half-assed pve, made armour sets extremely grindy and so on...


I love Mythic but I'm weary of sub based MMO's nowadays, I gave up and am playing WoW actually. Say what you will, it works has a pvp scene and won't die out suddenly.

 

[QtheMuse]

Worst part about this kick starter is it has a monthly subscription fee on top of kickstarting it. Talk about a kick in the balls.

 

[Hagi]

I'm quite skeptical to be honest...

I quite clearly remember Mark Jacobs and all his excitement for Warhammer Online and well... yeah... look where that ended...

But we'll see... Maybe there'll be another Warhammer Fantasy MMO as well...

EA's not there to meddle with it, and WAR had some completely awesome concepts until they ruined it, made levelling longer to appease wow fans, included half-assed pve, made armour sets extremely grindy and so on...


I love Mythic but I'm weary of sub based MMO's nowadays, I gave up and am playing WoW actually. Say what you will, it works has a pvp scene and won't die out suddenly.

I realize EA played a large part in it and was likely the cause of WAR's failure.

My problem is not that Jacobs might make those design choices again, I'm fairly certain he wouldn't. My problem is that all through the game's development Jacobs was advertising features in interviews, videos and more that didn't turn out anything as he promised. I know he didn't design those features and their many problems, but he still advertised them as something they quite clearly weren't. In short, I regard him as a liar and generally untrustworthy.

As for WoW. I've never been one to hate it, it's a good game. It doesn't do everything, far from it, but what it does it does very well. It's just a shame that what WoW provides isn't what I'm looking for in a MMO. Now, what I do dislike is other games sacrificing all their own uniqueness in order to become more like WoW and trying to beat it at it's own game.