After announcing new studio Fantastic Pixel Castle, and their first project, Ghost, MMO vet Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street and other members of the team held an AMA today to pull back the curtain a little bit on their development process, what they’re aiming for with this MMORPG, and more community questions.
The project is designed to be a world with permanent player actions in a shattered world setting. Making some things permanent is one way to create immersion. Yet, they want this game t be welcoming, so they’ve detailed some of the ways that’s coming together. Red shards, for instance, will be the more traditional MMO servers. Dangers are lurking, challenges like dungeons and raids, are open, world events occur, and more. Blue shards will be a more private play experience in a more individualized sandbox. This sounds a bit like Sea of Thieves’ upcoming Safer Seas feature.
Blue shards are more for those who want to explore and to have shared progression, and will allow players to experience different aspects of the game more suited to their preferences and play style.
See you in an hour! We're all waiting in this ridiculous mansion to speak with you??https://t.co/HFD5UJiYoK pic.twitter.com/s3sywVmDq1
— Fantastic Pixel Castle (@FPCStudio) November 8, 2023
There's much that the team cannot yet discuss, but early development is also about getting feedback as to what people really want to see. the game will be based in Unreal Engine and will feature a ton of flexibility so you could potentially build dozens of different classes. They want things to be extensive in terms of customization but not overwhelming so that again, the MMORPG will be accessible to many players.
This is also one reason why they emphasize multiple times that they want feedback throughout the entire process. They want this to be built with players in mind, so they're looking at creating multiple ways to give feedback.
It's an hour-long discussion, and even though it's still very early, they do answer details about their inspirations, transparency in development, understanding MMORPGs PVP, accessibility, and even the use of AI tools in development (alongside human creativity).
