In the upcoming indie MMO Crowfall, Creative Director Coleman has written an intense letter to the community. In it, he compared the “perfect MMO” to Moby Dick.
“Shadowbane ruined me. I lost friends over it. Upset family members. I won’t say it caused my divorce. But it certainly didn’t help.” Such words are truly not heard every day in the tightly wound gaming industry. The Creative Director of Crowfall, J. Todd Coleman, shares openly in a forum post how much it means to him to make Crowfall a success.
Ten years ago, he was at the brink; he saved his then-company Wolfpack by selling it to at least provide a livelihood for his employees. He personally went through a tough time, struggling for years with Shadowbane: an MMO that had started with great success but then had to be shut down due to beginner mistakes, as he writes.
Coleman has long passed the beginner stage; he did his homework in games like Wizard 101, a successful “Family Online Game” that primarily targets a younger audience. At KingIsle Entertainment, his job was comfortable and secure, but he wanted to give it another shot. Again, he put everything he had into the new project because he believes in Crowfall and the idea behind it.
Coleman refers to the idea of such a “MMORPG,” an idea he first wrote on a paper napkin in a pizzeria, as “his white whale.” This term in English refers to a goal one desperately wants to achieve. But perhaps the allegory of Moby Dick goes further than Coleman might wish. In the novel, Captain Ahab is so severely wounded by the white whale that he swears to hunt it down at all costs. In the attempt, he drives himself and his crew to disaster.
One can only hope that Coleman can slay his whale. That would certainly be good for the player base and the genre. Crowfall attempts with a new concept, to revive the somewhat ailing MMORPG genre. The first reactions to the game are positive, through Kickstarter, they managed to raise significantly more than one million.
