The latest developer blog has shown up on the Camelot Unchained site. In it, the team reveals that they do not believe 'hand holding' of their players is required. It's an interesting look at what the team has in mind as compared to the vast majority of today's MMOs.

As an independent developer of a lower-budget, lower subscription target MMORPG (using today’s inflated scale), we retain more than our fair measure of creative freedom that I wouldn’t trade for a larger budget and longer development timeline (been there, done that).  I want the freedom to take some risks with this game without enduring sleepless nights as I worry about whether a feature (or lack thereof) will alienate too many players, anger the boss, piss off the investors, etc.  I like waking up thinking “This is a really freaking cool idea let’s try it!” or “Wasn’t it cool when you were wandering around in the dark not knowing what might jump out at you?” rather than having to endure conversations like “Mark, if we do this we can sell-in another 100K boxes.”  We need to look at the evolution of these games and see what features (or again, lack thereof) made older MMORPGs seem more immersive and/or challenging and dare I say it (dare, dare!), realistic, even if a minority of players complained about them in the past and might still complain about them now.

Read more on the Camelot Unchained site.

<-- Suffers from Jaded Gamers Syndrom, Factional Notoriety was a really cool idea until you spend 200 hours faction grinding.  Hell wacking a tree and refining different components was a really cool idea for Crafting until you spend hundreds of  hours doing it with the net outcome being replaced by something that drops out of a dungeon.  PVP was a fun idea in a PVE game until balance of one started affecting the Balance of the other thereby alienating the other group of players.  Hell story lines in MMO's were great until you roll your 3rd alt because you ran out of  content.

What i'm saying is good Luck we have heard the same from excited developers before but really we haven't seen anything new and innovative since the gen 1 mmos.

He is atleast saying the right things.

Now we have to wait to see it translated into the game.

Originally posted by Merxion

<-- Suffers from Jaded Gamers Syndrom, Factional Notoriety was a really cool idea until you spend 200 hours faction grinding.  Hell wacking a tree and refining different components was a really cool idea for Crafting until you spend hundreds of  hours doing it with the net outcome being replaced by something that drops out of a dungeon.  PVP was a fun idea in a PVE game until balance of one started affecting the Balance of the other thereby alienating the other group of players.  Hell story lines in MMO's were great until you roll your 3rd alt because you ran out of  content.

What i'm saying is good Luck we have heard the same from excited developers before but really we haven't seen anything new and innovative since the gen 1 mmos.

Hes not saying that hes implementing inovative idea's On the contrary from what i read here He is grabing the idea's the first MMO's used and implementing them no shortcuts no bullshit qeus etc.

I agree with Merxion.  I also think that many developers with these cool ideas don't actually plan to endure the tedious difficulties they plan to throw at the players.  How many of the rich guys who are working on games and have a social life actually have time to play the game they have made?

I really believe many bad games have been made because the developers don't actually play the games they create or understand what makes them fun or tedious.

I think Mark has said some good things but from what I understand he orignally thought ToA was a cool idea.  Maybe it was fun on paper but I doubt he ever participated in one othe ridiculously long and complicated master level raids.

Got to say: he makes the right noises to get me interested.

Hm, i think they're trying to take the 'good' from the old days and mash it up with the good of the new days.

For example: In the very beginning, WoW was about exploration: You had to read what the quest told you and then process that information with information about your surroundings. It did not paint a marker on yor map and told you "go there". It gave you directions: "From here, go northeast until you find that big tree, then turn left along the mountains until you find a dell. There you will find your macguffin". You had to take in the world in order to orient yourself instead of simply following a pulsing arrow (meta gaming) on your UI.

The UI replaced the game world as your primary focus in many MMORPGs, and I find that a very sad thing. It took away player ability and player immersion, and added convenience. Convenience is not a bad thing in itself - we constantly try to make the world more so.

But in a game it is ultimately self-defeating. taken to extremes, the convenient game is the one that demands the least from a player: It plays itself.

In my mind, the true art of a game designer is to balance convenience with challenge, and the have right kinds of each. I've read all developer blogs of CU, and I feel the urge to give a kudos to Mark. Though it remains to be seen how his ideas ultimately work out, I think he is on the right track to make a game I potentially am very interested in.

Finally somebody gets it.  I've been yelling for years that MMOs have become too much like overprotective parents.  Let your kids (players in this case)  go lick that light socket...they'll only do it once...or twice, then if they do it more than that, you might need to take them in for some testing lol.

Edit: Kinda off topic, but I have no clue how I survived my childhood.  Back then "Childproofing" your house was throwing the kids outside and locking the door roflmao.

Originally posted by Theocritus
Apparently he is very serious about returning t oold school style of play....WHile alot of us reminisce about it here I'm not sure how many will actually want to play a game like that again.......I remember in EQ it used to take a couple of weeks to gain what they called hell levels....Can you imagine players in 2013 taking weeks to gain one level??....I know players that throw fits if they aren't max level in less than a week......Like you guys are saying, this sounds good in theory but we really need to see it in practice.

Agreed. With the lucky 10 hrs a week I get in for game time I'm not sure yet if this game will be for me personally right now until I see it in action. Personally, it take me a long time to max level anything nowadays anyways.

Originally posted by Theocritus
Apparently he is very serious about returning t oold school style of play....WHile alot of us reminisce about it here I'm not sure how many will actually want to play a game like that again.......I remember in EQ it used to take a couple of weeks to gain what they called hell levels....Can you imagine players in 2013 taking weeks to gain one level??....I know players that throw fits if they aren't max level in less than a week......Like you guys are saying, this sounds good in theory but we really need to see it in practice.

It is an indie project being kickstarted by gamers. What do you think the future of such niche MMO really is?  i think we already know the answer.

I don't really agree with him on the respecing thing.  The way I look it; if the devs make it possible to gimp your character then it is their fault when players gimp their characters.  Especially if the devs don't provide a clear explanation of what each skill and ability does and how they interact with each other right from the very begining.

I mean, if I spend months working on a character only to discover I'm screwed because I didn't take a certain skill or whatever--and now it's too late to take it---but nothing in the game explained to me how I would be screwed if I didn't take it, well, I'm going to be royally pissed off and rightly so.

I can't read the minds of the developers.  How was I supposed to know that you decided to add a few more numbers <here> and a few less <there> and you decided to link ability <A> with skill <Y> even though there is no obvious logical connection between the two?

So if you have a system which makes it possible for players to gimp their characters you damn well better lay out all the information they need to avoid said gimpage or YOU, the devs, are the ones to blame for it.

Yeah Mark is pulling alll the right strings to get the MMORPG bittervets interested. Now the only thing that remains to be see if he can pull it off.

new interview with MJ

http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=31796

"In terms of no content patches, well, since the team doesn’t have to spend its time building new content that players will burn through quickly, we can spend our time and money building new content they won’t burn through as quickly. ?"

Jesus Christ, how did this guy suddenly realize almost everything that's wrong with the current MMO genre?

Mark, you've got all the right ideas. Hope you'll make them happen :)

Originally posted by tom_gore

"In terms of no content patches, well, since the team doesn’t have to spend its time building new content that players will burn through quickly, we can spend our time and money building new content they won’t burn through as quickly. ?"

Jesus Christ, how did this guy suddenly realize almost everything that's wrong with the current MMO genre?

Mark, you've got all the right ideas. Hope you'll make them happen :)

Seriously, loved that part as well.