At Gamescom 2018, the developers of Crowfall revealed to our author Leya why they are afraid of the release of their PvP MMORPG.
When I spoke with Creative Director J. Todd Coleman and Marketing Head DebySue Wolfcale at Gamescom, we discussed the current state of Crowfall. We also talked about the launch of the game.
“As an MMO developer, you must be afraid of the release”
Mein-MMO: With Crowfall, you have one of the few MMORPG Kickstarter projects that can actually go into release. As an indie MMORPG, you will also be entering new territory. Do you sometimes feel afraid of the release?
J. Todd Coleman: Of course we are scared! As an MMO developer, you must be afraid of the release. If you don’t bring that nervous energy, you will mess it up. I have been through three major MMO launches myself. So this is nothing new for me and I have been extremely nervous every time. You only have one launch. It is a nervous energy that you should allow yourself to express, get excited about, and let it drive you.
I am not nervous about whether we can find players. I am afraid whether we can give those players what makes them happy. That is the thing I worry about all the time. That is also what I should and must be afraid of as a Creative Director.
DebySue Wolfcale: I also believe that if you already have the Kickstarter backers behind you, you feel that fear even more. I just want those players to feel great about having supported us. Without them, we couldn’t be here now.
Coleman wants to offer players the “right” Crowfall
Mein-MMO: You have postponed the release again. Why?
J. Todd Coleman: Yes, we have postponed the release to next year. When we saw where we currently stand regarding development and level polishing, we wanted to take a few steps back and revise a few things.
As developers, there are always things from the early days that you want to adjust later on. We are [as independent developers] in the fortunate position to be able to do exactly that, so we have done it. It is important to us that we develop the “right” game and not focus so much on the date. We don’t have a publisher telling us when we need to hit the market. We take our advantage from that. If we want to postpone the release a bit, we will.
Mein MMO: I know you wanted to work on a few core elements again. You also wrote on your website that the current testers would feel the same way. But what are the exact problems? What do you need to revise?
J. Todd Coleman: There are a few technical issues. At the moment, dozens of players can compete against dozens of others. But we need to be bigger than that. I want to see battles where 150 players can compete in real-time simultaneously. We cannot offer that at the moment.
We also need to work on how the game feels for players. The UI also needs a generous overhaul.
In the development of a game, you will always have to overhaul the entire design. Decisions that made sense at the beginning may seem pointless after revisions.
We are almost done with the races and classes. However, we still need a few additional creatures for monster fights. Monsters are not really the focus of the game, but we need them to make the game feel alive.
Players can create the world, and we need more building blocks for them to use. At the moment, we have about 40 to 50 land plots. We should at least double or even triple that.
Release postponed multiple times: Originally, Crowfall was supposed to be released in 2017. The MMORPG financed a large part of the development through a Kickstarter project.
First, the release was postponed to 2018. Now Crowfall is supposed to be released in 2019. Crowfall is among the few indie MMORPGs that has continuous development.
The latest content brings “the Hunger” to Crowfall:
