Camelot Unchained Articles

Columns

• Camelot Unchained: Just Before This Week

  Just before this week's Camelot Unchained “Top Tenish” list of developments lands let’s parse through last weeks to see what we can decipher from the dev speak!

  Posted on 08/31/2018 by Tim Eisen

• The Beta Crusade Ends, Long Live the Beta Wars!

  In a moment that, I assume, is equal parts victory and terror, Camelot Unchained has finally breached the gate and charged into Beta One. If there were a visual to accompany a studio moving into Beta one I assume it would be a pale red-eyed developer standing up from the desk they drive, taking off the shackles and chugging a beer while they fist pump to the synthwave playing in the background! Their face a mask of pride and triumph!

  Posted on 08/01/2018 by Tim Eisen

• The Beta Ganks Back

  With Beta being missed for the third time, our own Tim Eisen takes a look at what landing it upon the fourth try means, for better or worse.

  Posted on 07/04/2018 by Tim Eisen

• Under Construction - Balance Soonish

  With less than a month before Camelot Unchained Beta 1 CSE was battling the crusade when a supermassive black hole opened up throwing the CUniverse out of balance! What does this mean for Beta and beyond?

  Posted on 06/06/2018 by Tim Eisen

• Begun, the Beta Crusades Have

  This week our own Tim Eisen attempts to fit 5,000 words in 1,000 as he covers the latest Beta Crusade update from City State Entertainment. We’re talking CPU load on proxies, icons and MMORPG freestyling!

  Posted on 05/15/2018 by Tim Eisen

• Fight the Power!

  Chasing power retains players but what happens when a game like Camelot Unchained removes the automatic arms race from the leveling experience? What happens when our idea of power evolves?

  Posted on 04/18/2018 by Tim Eisen

• The 10 Most Wanted MMOs of 2018

  I think it’s probably safe to say that the big releases for MMOs in 2017 have come and gone. Unless Blizzard shocks the world and magically puts out an expansion to WoW as a surprise Christmas gift, we’re already looking forward to 2018. So strap on your hype-belts, and board the hype-train, as it’s time to look forward to 2018 and hope it’s far, far better than 2017. This is our list of the 10 Most Wanted MMOs of 2018.

  Posted on 10/31/2017 by Suzie Ford

• Dragons & Crows

  This week our own Tim Eisen tries to keep up with big news from both of his pets, Camelot Unchained (combat speed) and Crowfall (the first campaign).

  Posted on 07/06/2017 by Tim Eisen

• Loud Footfalls On Deaf Ears

  This week our own Tim Eisen takes a look at expectation and communication in the Camelot Unchained Universe.

  Posted on 06/29/2017 by Tim Eisen

• The Longest Inch - A Beta Update of Sorts

  This Week Tim Eisen looks for Beta clues in the latest Dose of Design from the Camelot Unchained Newsletter.

  Posted on 06/06/2017 by Tim Eisen

• KickStarter Games that Begin with C

  This week Tim Eisen hops around the crowd funded PVP universe as he covers the games that start with a C, Crowfall, Camelot Unchained and Chronicles of Elyria.

  Posted on 05/11/2017 by Tim Eisen

• Crowd-Funded PvP Extravaganza

  This week Tim Eisen crams too much into one column as he attempts the unheard-of feat that is covering Chronicles of Elyria, Crowfall and Camelot Unchained at the once! In case you are wondering, in the interest of fairness he drew names from a hat to decide which one got the lead in image.

  Posted on 04/20/2017 by Tim Eisen

• Like It or Not, Destiny 2 is Good for the MMO Genre

  Destiny 2 is coming to PC. Praise be to RNGeezus, it’s true. While the “Persistent Online Shooter” does everything it can to avoid the term MMO, truth is they’ve invited us (a site mainly focused on MMOs) out to their studio on several occasions. Acronym or not, even Bungie realizes the game’s draw for fans of the genre. With the sequel now officially launching on the PC September 8th, Destiny 2 has become the bright spot on the MMO gamer’s horizon.

  Posted on 03/31/2017 by William Murphy

• A Thirst-Quenching MMORPG

  This week Tim Eisen takes a look at CSE’s latest Top Tenish list, talks about the importance of accurate spear animations, crafting’s loosening back end and nature’s rockstar vagabond - Taraxacum aka the Dandelion. All that and so so much more!

  Posted on 03/22/2017 by Tim Eisen

• Puzzles in the Dark

  This week our own Tim Eisen dives into CSE’s monthly Dose of Design from the biggest newsletter in the business. Here’s an ominous clickbait teaser, things get dark.

  Posted on 03/08/2017 by Tim Eisen

• Beta Progress & Polearms

  This week Tim Eisenzimmer talks about Beta, last week’s top ten list and polearms!

  Posted on 02/21/2017 by Tim Eisen

• Necessary Disclosure Agreement

  This week Tim Eisen talks about Non-Disclosure Agreements aka NDA’s, why they exist and if they are still necessary in the pay to test era.

  Posted on 02/07/2017 by Tim Eisen

• Sailing Against Time

  I was in the midst of one of my now standard bullet point breakdown columns when I hit a wall of sorts. Not a bad wall or a good wall but a curious wall. One that sent me down a path of many questions. I’ve called time the ultimate ganker. When does it start to impact the designs of Camelot Unchained and does that lead to a crowd funded trademark soft launch? All indicators say they are staying the course but at what point has enough time passed to force a shifting of the sails?

  Posted on 01/24/2017 by Tim Eisen

• And So 2017 Begins & What It Might Bring

  This week Timothy Eisen reflects on CSE’s top ten weekly completions and asks for your opinions on the next year of development.

  Posted on 01/10/2017 by Tim Eisen

• The Most Wanted MMOs of 2017

  2016 was a rough year. The long-standing MMOs we’ve come to love carried along quite well, but for new titles the selection was pretty limited. And so, as we’re fond to do at year’s end, we look forward to 2017 and the titles we expect to launch (even if in early access, which we pretty much consider launched but ‘half-baked’). Here’s to the next twelve months and the many hours of gaming goodness we hope it brings.

  Posted on 12/29/2016 by William Murphy

• A Representative Year

  Our own Tim Eisen looks back at the year in development of Camelot Unchained, from the weekly updates to the CSE’s own top ten completions!

  Posted on 12/27/2016 by Tim Eisen

• Discord and Zergs

  This week Timothy Eisen assesses Discord in Camelot Unchained and comments on plans to counter the dreaded zerg!

  Posted on 12/13/2016 by Tim Eisen

• Hurry Up & Wait

  This week Timothy Eisen talks beta pains, launch pressures and makes a few Camelot Unchained predictions for 2017.

  Posted on 11/29/2016 by Tim Anderson

• Finding Zen in Fandom

  This week Timothy Eisen looks at graphics, hiring, hammers and interpretation of information within the Camelot Unchained universe.

  Posted on 11/18/2016 by Tim Eisen

• Progress Marches On

  This week Timothy Eisen talks about Beta fatigue and reflects on women in gaming from a myth to an integral part of game development.

  Posted on 11/01/2016 by Tim Eisen

• The Evolution of CU's Updates

  This week Timothy Eisen looks at the Camelot Unchained backer updates from the beginning to now and wonders which lessons guided their evolution.

  Posted on 10/17/2016 by Tim Eisen

• If It Was Easy, It Wouldn't Be Any Fun

  This week our own Timothy Eisen gets inspired by Camelot Unchained Newsletter 26 and ends up taking an uncertainty induced trip down memory lane to the early days of the MMORPG genre.

  Posted on 10/04/2016 by Tim Eisen

• It's Happening!

  This week our own Timothy Eisen plucks 7 significant development accomplishments from the September 9th update to field dress (that’s politically correct speak for disembowel).

  Posted on 09/21/2016 by Tim Eisen

• Could MMOs Benefit from Less Scope?

  “All I want is a focused experience”, said one of my friends. We were chatting about massively multiplayer games and the scope of the genre. Seemingly and in recent years that scope of has grown to the point where developers want to include everything. Take Guild Wars 2 as a prime example, it has dungeons, raids, fractals, structured PvP, World versus World, open world events, living world and seasonal events.

  Posted on 09/19/2016 by Lewis Burnell

• Does Lore Matter?

  Does lore matter or is it wasted resources on something most PVPers just ignore? MMORPG’s own Timothy Eisen used to think the later but now he thinks the former, read on to find out what changed his opinion.

  Posted on 09/06/2016 by Tim Eisen

• Interpreting Completions

  This week Tim Eisen went mining for content and ended up with 7 development completions to interpret (or claim he interpreted) from developer speak to the more common language of us small folk.

  Posted on 08/23/2016 by Tim Eisen

• A Gentle Breeze

  This week Timothy Eisen mines the first State of the Game address and the Dose of Design-Reabilitation Results from City State Entertainment’s Newsletter #24 for mic drop worthy news bits to muse over.

  Posted on 08/09/2016 by Tim Eisen

• Are Backers Publishers?

  There was no update this week, which I’m hearing ironically means some good things for backers. As a result, I thought it might be a good time to talk about everyone’s favorite villain, video game publishers! What are they and have we become them? Let’s start with a highly simplified history lesson.

  Posted on 08/01/2016 by Tim Eisen

• Watch the Skies

  Summer weather, holidays and plagues have left us with a skeletal City State Entertainment (CSE) but that didn’t stop them from getting us our weekly update featuring steamy streams, community management and a vile villain for me to opine over. It was a bit shorter than usual but it had pretty pictures in it so I didn’t mind. Here’s one below showing what testers are doing with the ever more impressive C.U.B.E.

  Posted on 07/14/2016 by Tim Eisen

• From East to West

  This week in the Camelot Unchained universe we got another user story heavy update. What does that mean? More importantly what does it show? I believe it shows that progress has picked up thanks to the addition of 4 new programmers and a pace that is more in line with what I was hoping for a few months ago might have been set.

  Posted on 06/29/2016 by Tim Eisen

• A Citizen of the World

  Much of the Camelot Unchained news last week was “there is going to be bigger news next week (Friday)”. Unfortunately, I have to write this column before said bigger news lands so I ask, where does that leave my little chunk of internet real-estate? I suppose I could wax poetically about philosophical MMO concepts and sociology applied to MMORPGs then scaled up for use in real life but frankly looking at current events in society right now I find myself in a fairly disillusioned state.

  Posted on 06/16/2016 by Tim Eisen

• Big Things in Small Packages

  In this week’s Camelot Unchained (CU) update City State Entertainment (CSE) brought us another small update with a bit of big news sprinkled in for those of us paying close attention. Not being one that generally pays close attention (to anything and certainly not for very long) I almost missed it myself!

  Posted on 05/31/2016 by Tim Eisen

• Reading Between the Lines

  Things in the Camelot Unchained Universe (CU) have been unsarcastically quiet over the last couple of weeks. This is City State Entertainment (CSE) so of course they are interacting with backers on forums and Mark Jacobs has been spotted prowling a comments section or two but things have been just a pinch low key over the past couple of weeks. Maybe it’s the fair summer weather out there in sunny Fairfax, VA?

  Posted on 05/17/2016 by Tim Eisen

• Offense vs Defense vs Tricks

  There I was, sail at half-mast sipping on a bottle of “meditation” as I casually drifted through the CUniverse wondering if this column would ever find its soul. Just when I was about to take a dive into the dark waters of infinity (sleep) I was awakened by a succulent smell on a gentle breeze that was this juicy tidbit from CSE Ben in the latest Camelot Unchained newsletter.

  Posted on 05/03/2016 by Tim Eisen

• Rockets & Stars

  CSE has continues to churn out fan content while they march through the crunch into beta. At this point we are either a few weeks, a few months, or a few days into the crunch. Frankly I can’t tell anymore and I don’t know how anyone as CSE can either! I got lost in the whirl wind of vines, tweets, emails, twitches updates, newsletters and all of the other community content they have produced since the crunch started!

  Posted on 04/07/2016 by Tim Eisen

• CSE's Sausage

  A lot, “a lot” is roughly number of CSE updates we’ve seen over the last few of weeks (30 plus youtube videos alone). It’s almost like they planned for this or something (stirs his pot). After being in a lull (by their standards) for a few months it’s nice to see CSE firing in all cylinders. It would be impossible to cover everything, or even almost everything CSE has been showing us so I’ll have to go with...bullet points! How exciting!

  Posted on 03/22/2016 by Tim Eisen

• Keyboard Warriors

  We have toppled empires and dethroned kings. We killed Cesar and sabotaged elections. We’ve shifted politics and routed countries. I’m talking about the vocal minority who, in this day in age, are often the most loyal fans their favorite entertainment. We have as many names as faces but we are not many ourselves, yet it is often our opinions that get heard over the silent majority.

  Posted on 02/23/2016 by Tim Eisen

• Challenging PvE

  Watching videos of players that manage to get through Skyrim and Fallout 4 playing as a pacifist is both astonishing and an example of my favorite thing about humans, our creative ingenuity. These determined gamers refuse to accept what is laid before them, instead they bend the game to their will and rewrite it on their terms. It got me thinking, could PVErs do the same in a game as PVP focused as Camelot Unchained?

  Posted on 02/09/2016 by Tim Eisen

• Mutiny & a Snowstorm

  A few weeks is a long time on the internet. Last time I checked one day in internet time is equal to 2 weeks real time. CSE might as well have closed up shop and cancelled the game because they went 3 whole weeks without a typical (typically huge) update, at least I heard it was that long, but I’m too cool to care.

  Posted on 01/27/2016 by Tim Eisen

• Hardcore RvR

  Most people consider “hardcore” PVP to be free for all, full loot PVP and to the purists anything less is “carebear”. “Realm vs Realm”, as coined in Dark Age of Camelot, is considered to be PVP’s friendly cousin. It's PVP with a focus on realm/faction wide co-operation. The very fabric of RVR goes against the very nature of hardcore PVP but words and their meanings are not stagnant. Is RVR in Camelot Unchained more hardcore than hardcore PVP?

  Posted on 01/13/2016 by Tim Eisen

• The Upcoming MMOs of 2016

  2015 is in the past, and the majority of 2016 lies ahead. What games will we be playing as we crawl through the calendar year? We’re here to help figure that out. With this week’s List, we’ll take a quick look at all MMOs we expect to hit beta, early access, and launch in 2016. Click through and start adding games to your wish list!

  Posted on 01/04/2016 by William Murphy

• Crafted Prey

  Before I say anything about crafters I wanted to let the screenshot below sink in. That is a thick forest (an area specifically meant to push the system) with hundreds of players and bots (bots that were designed to be even more resource-intensive than an average player) battling it out in a game in Alpha that isn’t crashing. It’s holding strong and CSE has done very little optimization at this point! CSE finally hit around 3k before their physics system wanted to tap out.

  Posted on 12/30/2015 by Tim Eisen

• The One We Forgot to Get

  Who is CU competing against? Is it other MMORPGs? Is it all of gaming or even all of entertainment? Maybe it’s us and our short attention spans? More and more the correct answer is all of the above. As our phones evolved into being portable entertainment devices the ability of a single game to grab and maintain our attention has become increasingly difficult.

  Posted on 12/16/2015 by Tim Eisen

• Don't Be Afraid of Too Many Classes

  Several rounds of voting later we have seen all but the last Camelot Unchained class unveil. After looking over the list (excluding the final one which judging by the silhouette looks very…crouchy) I’ve come to the conclusion that CSE is offering us a solid mix of concepts that range from something old, something new, and combinations of both.

  Posted on 12/02/2015 by Tim Eisen

• We Have to Agree that Overcoming is Worth Agreeing On

  You ever get so into ripping off a finger nail that minutes go by but you don’t notice? We all know no matter how careful we are its going to hurt tomorrow but we can’t stop! That is sort of how I feel when I click the browser icon after things happen. Because we all know in this era whenever a thing happens staunch opinions aren’t far behind. Lots of things both in and out of the CUniverse have been happening lately.

  Posted on 11/18/2015 by Tim Eisen

• Triple 6 on All Hallows Eve

  Six, yes I said SIX more classes have been unveiled since we last talked. If the Heavy Fighter and Archer class trios felt a bit more traditional (by CU standards) then the last two trios have pulled things right back into the veil of BSCU! Timing was perfect for Shapeshifters and Scouts if for no other reason because all six of these classes would feel right at home on All Hallows' Eve! They have the look, they have the mechanics, they have the darkness, ladies and gentlemen I smell alts!

  Posted on 11/04/2015 by Tim Eisen

• Crowd Funded Class Grab

  Since the last time we talked the CUniverse pushed through another stretch goal and it was a BIG one! Pandora’s hidden box has opened allowing stealth in all of its underhanded glory to be unchained! As if that wasn’t exciting enough CSE has unveiled a new stretch goal and two more sets of classes which means 6 new classes (9 total so far)! That was a lot of exclamation points!

  Posted on 10/21/2015 by Tim Eisen

• Get Some Class

  After 887 words that had nothing to do with anything I realized I had once again drifted too far off course! As tempted as I was to send in a bunch of unrelated short rants about blenders and Cthulhu just to test the fine editors of MMORPG.com, I clicked the trash icon and started over.

  Posted on 10/07/2015 by Tim Eisen

• The Ink Blot Test

  The CUniverse continues to gain momentum and the updates keep coming! We’ve got tested server tech, we’ve got pretty terrain, we’ve got more (senior) programmers and we even got a double dose of updates last week! I used thorough market research to help me metagame which delicious tidbits would get me the most clicks this week, then I tossed them into the fire and went with my gut!

  Posted on 09/23/2015 by Tim Eisen

• Do You Like Pineapple Pizza?

  After putting all the news bits in a sock, shaking them up and pulling one out I got “newsletter” so that is what I’ll focus on today. I don’t think it’s possible for me to cover the entire thing (it’s packed) so I’ll just hand pick a few of the tasty bits. Firstly is the Melee Combat Demo. That demo is exactly what I hoped it would be. Real, physical, tactically visual and VERY exciting.

  Posted on 09/09/2015 by Tim Eisen

• Camelot Unstealthed

  It’s been a few weeks since the CU stealth stretch goal update which equates to roughly 4 million e-years. Fortunately I’m always a little behind in life. I FINALLY got to read about how one of my favorite MMO classes might work in CU! The one shotting, stealth popping, ganking shanking wonder that is the assassin stealther! Wooo!

  Posted on 08/26/2015 by Tim Eisen

• Camouflage Unchained

  Stealth is far too big for my little piece of internet real estate so I will have to cover it in a couple of articles. In this first piece I want to talk about the Archer and the Soul Walker. Both classes interest me but as an alt-a-holic almost all classes do in some way or another so that might not be saying a lot. Among my alts the archers, stealthers and jack-of-all classes tend to log a few more hours that the rest so the recent update from CSE about stealth was a big one.

  Posted on 08/12/2015 by Tim Eisen

• Pitchforks & Betas

  There is no sense in avoiding the demon in the dungeon. Due to a lack of staff CU Beta was delayed until further notice. It’s obviously a disappointment for many backers but it's also a symbol of how much the genre has changed. Back in my day Beta wasn’t “delayed”. Beta usually had 4 stages and concluded with “open beta tests” and most scrubs like me didn’t get in until phase 4, or worst case scenario, open beta.

  Posted on 07/29/2015 by Tim Eisen

• The Consequences of Destruction

  Back in my day a vine was a thing I used to swing over crocodiles in Jungle Hunt. Nowadays it’s a place where you could watch someone playing Jungle Hunt for 6 seconds. Word on the e-street is it's all the rage with the younglings (likely because their attention span is about 5.5 seconds)-note I put that barb a few lines in knowing full well none of that generation read past the first sentence! Ha!

  Posted on 07/15/2015 by Tim Eisen

• Here Be Dragons

  Much like stealth most MMOers seem to have no middle ground when it comes to dragons. We seem to either love them or hate them. If you think they are an example of trite MMO tropes or if you think no fantasy MMO is complete without them, I ask you this, what are they doing in Camelot Unchained? Before we can get to that we need some background so let’s see if there are any clues hidden in what we know about them already.

  Posted on 07/01/2015 by Tim Eisen

• Reviewing the Progress

  I’m going to touch on some top secret information...information that many Bothans died to bring me…information that came from the latest Camelot Unchained update! Ok so it’s not really secret since I share it with roughly twenty thousand Camelot Unchained backers and whoever reads the newsletter and updates on the CU website once they are added.

  Posted on 06/17/2015 by Tim Eisen

• We Are Older Than Average Gamers

  I feel comfortable saying the majority of CU backers hailed from DAOC, which launched on October 10, 2001. Back then, MMORPGers were likely a bit ahead of the times, had a decent chunk of expendable income (or their parents did) and were likely more…um, “mature” (for lack of a better word) than the toddlers walking around playing phone “apps” these days.

  Posted on 06/03/2015 by Tim Eisen

• A Pet Class That Isn't a Pet Class

  How do you make a pet class for a game that is being built for large scale open world pvp battles? As much as I love them (and have loved them since I first dabbled in “Creature Handler” way back in Star Wars galaxies) pets in any game are hard to get right and in a PVP game they can be downright game breaking! When I heard CU was going to have a “pet class” stretch goal my skeptical pager started buzzing!

  Posted on 05/20/2015 by Tim Eisen

• Is PvP the New Fad?

  AAA development is taking a back seat to small teams and niche games, and almost all of the attention-earners have one thing in common: PVP. This isn’t the first time PVP has come to save the MMO world, and we at MMORPG love us some player on player combat.

  Posted on 05/11/2015 by Christopher Coke

• Anxiously Waiting

  This is a new experience for me. I’ve been given a chance, one that I take very seriously, to be a representative of both MMORPG.com and the Camelot Unchained community. I thought long and hard about integrity, and the challenge of walking the line between a fanboy and critical writer and I decided it was one I could walk…hopefully!

  Posted on 05/07/2015 by Tim Eisen

• Camelot Unchained - Alpha Video Thoughts

  City State Entertainment released a in game video for Camelot Unchained over the weekend to the masses. Rob watched the video and checks in this week on his thoughts the progress the game has made so far.

  Posted on 04/02/2015 by Robert Lashley

• Crowdfund Round-up

  I’m sure a lot of you right now are enjoying the release of WildStar, for those that aren’t I hope you are enjoying your game of choice. Me? I’m still tinkering in the Elder Scrolls Online and playing WildStar but that’s not what this week’s column is about. Over the past few months I’ve had a couple of columns focusing on crowdfunding and I’d like to check in some of the games that are currently in development or actively seeking funding.

  Posted on 06/05/2014 by Robert Lashley

• Peeking in on the Veil

  Camelot Unchained is one of the most closely watched of the crowd-sourced indie MMOs currently in development. We take a look at recent revelations from the dev team before asking you to head to the comments to add your thoughts.

  Posted on 10/30/2013 by Robert Lashley

• The Crowd Funded MMO

  Crowd funding game development has become quite common with the rise of KickStarter and other revenue generating sites. In her latest column, Genese Davis takes a look at some of the most successful crowd-funded MMOs. Read on before stopping in to leave your comments.

  Posted on 10/24/2013 by Genese Davis

• Impossibly Driven By Hope?

  In our latest Social Hub column, we take a look at the KickStarter hopeful, Camelot Unchained. The game, at least in these earliest days, seems to be bent on reviving true community spirit in MMOs. See why we think so before heading to the comments.

  Posted on 04/15/2013 by Christina Gonzalez

• Room for Many Realms

  There seems at times to be little agreement between users as to what defines a 'good' MMO. In today's Devil's Advocate, we take a look at a recent pair of blog posts and try to find some common ground in the eternal argument. Check it out before heading into the comments.

  Posted on 02/15/2013 by Victor Barreiro Jr.