This past week we spoke with J. Todd Coleman about some of the amazing updates coming with Crowfall this week. The main focus was on the monsters in the game and how these different create and tribal types of mobs will impact players as they battle it out against each other. Crowfall’s next big release will start to put the Throne War elements into place, so the team thought to focus on monsters for a few announcements.
Todd explained that as an MMO the game goes outside the normal humanoid races you see in other games. Adding in the Elkin, Centaur, and Minotaur as examples of races you don’t typically get in MMOs. Crowfall does not host in depth instanced based dungeons or even a raid experience. Todd was clear that other games do those things very well, so they are going back to the old school MMO feel of a true open world. The monsters exist in the world to add a general threat level to the game in which players are at war. There are however adventuring areas which will generate themed content around bosses. A spider queen may decide to take hold in part of the forest and send her minions out to take over. Players from any faction can fight over the resources which will be found in that area, under constant threat from the spiders.
Todd gave us an example of the day and night cycle which gives life to the corrupting “hunger” which will take over your everyday ox or pig and turn it into a rampaging beast. At night the hunger creeps into areas corrupting the land and creatures but yields great rewards if you can get the crystals. The hunger will also be extremely contagious and spread quickly. These wandering monsters will die out during the day from their corruption.
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A more networked form of monster will be enemies like wolves, spiders, or even zombies. These packs of creates will actively roam and fight together. They will also offer boss mobs for players to try and bring down, while constantly looking over their shoulder to fight others. Bosses like a huge wolf, a giant, or even a wyvern will be found among the packs.
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Todd mentioned something that Crowfall had not talked about yet with fans. The other group of monsters you will face will be War Camps. This is a military unit that might be found in the game wandering around. They can be a loose tribe or mercenaries all the way up to a full Centaur regiment that is hunting around the land. This is something the team is very excited about because players will have the ability to fight small battles or skirmishes with the units they face, again, they will be under the constant threat of battle by other players. Todd mentioned another layer that it adds to the game with Game of Thrones style mercenary camps also roaming the lands. These dynamics could lead to some amazing battles as you are facing off against centaurs and your enemies come running over the hill…
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Todd also talked about how monsters will act a lot like characters in the sense that they will have six or eight skills on them which they can combo and chain attacks. Also, any creatures can be corrupted by the hunger effects. This turns them all much more dangerous at night. Todd went back to the early MMOs which rewarded exploration and conquest for the players. Ultima Online was a big example of a game which allowed you to just go out and find things to fight.
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Crowfall is in fantastic shape. There are ten of the eleven classes in the game. All twelve races are now in the game. The team had all this content in the build, but there was nothing to win. Now with the addition of monsters and the Throne War coming the way of players there will be a solid purpose to fight for. Crowfall is an MMO which continues to bring back the open world fun we all experienced years ago. It will be great to see how a lot of new generation gamers get into Crowfall and how the worlds will develop for everyone. We look forward to more announcements from the team.
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