Greetings Everyone,
It's been a while since I gave an update of the games that are coming in the future that we're watching for a potential next chapter. The good news is that GW2, RIFT, and ESO are all doing fairly well right now. Our two legacy chapters are up over 200 and our full chapter is hovering around 300. I know many of you are chomping at the bit for a new adventure and I can't blame you. With the barrage of games hitting an not a whole lot of them sticking around for the long game or having the lasting power to keep peoples attention past a few months, I can see the desire in a lot of your hearts for a place to call home.
Looking Good:
Ashes of Creation
Features: PvE, Raiding, Crafting, Housing, Territory Control & Management, Politics, Large Community Friendly, Siege Warfare, Opt-In PvP, No Griefing. Also of Note: Subscription based.
So far this one is looking to have everything we look for in a game. It supports large guilds, has "zones" both static and moving for PvP. It has both PvE and Siege Warfare and has a full progression raiding system. It's friendly for casuals and for hard core players. There's also lots of room for roleplay. So far based on their videos, tech demos, and conversations with the team this one is looking to lineup with our compatibility matrix. That said, only time will tell. We've seen games have grand visions that don't deliver. We need to approach this one with an open mind and make sure it lives up to it's vision.
Small Hangups:
Chronicles of Elyria
This game has a massive amount of innovative features. It seems to line up with our goals fairly well. It has siege, pve, and crafting. However it's payment model has me seriously concerned. In a game where players can coup de gras and kill your character, even if penalized, the fact that it costs real world cash to buy another life has me deeply concerned. The developers assume that players wont do this because they'll be marked men and be hunted by npcs and players. But in todays world you cant assume players wont take the most screwed up path just to be a jerk. This enables griefers to literally commit financial warfare on a person. That i'm not cool with. Unless that payment model is corrected, I can't with good conscience encourage our community to go there.
Camelot Unchained
I really want to love this one. I probably will even end up playing this one. I've known Mark for more than a decade and stand behind his work. However his vision for Camelot does not line up with our vision for Gaiscioch. If we were the same community that played DAOC and WAR then it would probably be ok. But we've developed a majority that enjoys casual pve adventures now and I can't in good conscience push us to a game where the minority will enjoy it but the majority will feel left out. I definitely will be spawning a Social Adventure here and if it grows large enough we may consider opening a chapter but we'd be starting with a handful of Gaiscioch members and have to bring new blood in. We simply don't have the Siege presence we used to have.
Crowfall
Crowfall still has time to come around. I've been playing to for a wee bit now and while it's got a great crafting system, and it's housing system seems pretty cool, the part that has me worried is the fact the game almost entirely focuses on the siege war. Without PvP you can't get the best resources which allows you to build better gear. At this point Crowfall looks to be a Social Adventure at best.
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen
Pantheon is a bit of the opposite of Camelot Unchained. It's a massive world in the vein of Everquest that features a ton of PvE, but lacks in the PvP department. We're continuing to keep a close eye on this one as it does feature some great large scale content for players to encounter and probably would make a great platform for public community events. However I'm not certain it would be the best fit for our family. I don't think it would draw the 500+ that we typically strive for in a new chapter.
Bless Online
For a long time Bless looked like a serious contender. It still looks like an amazing game. However it just announced that it's going to be running it's massive siege war on a schedule much like Age of Conan and Riders of Icarus where you can only siege at a certain time of day. This excludes many people from having the opportunity to enjoy siege warfare. In addition it does have a very mature theme a la The Witcher series if you catch my drift. While it still looks like an amazing game, I don't feel it's going to be the right game for Gaiscioch. We will however look at opening a social adventure for those who are ok with the drawbacks and want to explore this beautiful game.
The No-Gos
- Dark & Light - Recently announced they;re going the route of Conan Exiles and ARK with smaller servers hosted by players. Not planned to become a MMO.
- Conan Exiles - Because of Obvious reasons ;P Plus the lack of a MMO presence prevents this one from being a chapter.
- Legends of Aria (Shards Online) - Still watching, but it has not performed well across our polls and playtests.