[Earth Eternal] Sure, Iron Realms has announced an 11th race for their upcoming game, but will there be ducks? Why are ducks always stuck being the comedic sidekick? Where is our game for heroic ducks that save the land?
Come to think of it, I knew a great many duck characters in City of Heroes.
: Zubon
For every Duck Tales there’s a Daffy Duck.
ToonTown
You’ve been giving quite a bit of attention to a game with almost no budget, being organized by a development head that admits on his blog to having absolutely no visual game experience at all, and who advertises a business model for EE that revolves around ‘Paying money will make me more powerful’.
I find this odd, and not at all what I’ve come to expect from KTR.
I am amused by the game where you play the fuzzy people. Also, those comments do not sound far from Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates, which has turned out pretty well.
If it makes you feel better, our front page currently includes a company that cancelled a major game product just after releasing an expansion pack and another that admitted to employees’ manipulating game rules to give their friends advantages in PvP. It’s not like we are talking about Vanguard or something.
“You’ve been giving quite a bit of attention to a game with almost no budget, being organized by a development head that admits on his blog to having absolutely no visual game experience at all, and who advertises a business model for EE that revolves around ‘Paying money will make me more powerful’.
I find this odd, and not at all what I’ve come to expect from KTR.”
I’m by no means an EE or Iron Realms fanboi, but those comments really irk me.
First off, the game has almost no budget according to who? According to their FAQ:
“So many MMOs run out of money before release. Will you?
No. We’re completely funded, to the point where we can release and then operate for months with absolutely no revenue if need be. Earth Eternal will be released, period.”
Secondly, the game is “being organized by a development head that admits on his blog to having absolutely no visual game experience at all”. So he’s being blatantly honest about the graphics bit on his own blog. Do you play MMORPGs because they have good graphics? If you’re playing MMORPGs for the “massively multiplayer” and “RPG” elements it may be worth noting that Iron Realms has been running THE most successful commercial MUD (Achaea) for the last 10+ years, and has another 3 very advanced MUDs and their own MUD engine in its repertoire. Ultima Online launched the same year as Achaea, and Everquest two years after that – both those games have gone through multiple acquisitions and operation team refreshes, while Achaea remains largely the same. How’s that for MMORPG experience? If you still think graphics matter more than that, why don’t you just play Oblivion?
Third, they “advertise a business model for EE that revolves around ‘Paying money will make me more powerful`” – as opposed to what, paying money month by month and also investing considerable grind time (more than what most people have, or should have, available to play computer games to begin with in my opinion) to become more powerful? I am personally more than happy to get to experience a game for absolutely free as a casual player by having the game subsidized by those who have more time than I do. To me, it is only fair that those who spend a considerable amount of time playing the game and are really serious are also the ones paying the most amount of money. I guess it depends on if you’re playing the game to experience the world and social interactions, or if you’re playing it to “win” by having the most XP and exercise extreme uber-pwnage on everyone that challenges you.
Lastly, “I find this odd, and not at all what I’ve come to expect from KTR.” – thanks, Zubon, for covering games that aren’t WoW/EQ2/CoX. Insightful posts and coverage of atypical games is what got me reading KTR to begin with, and you’ve provided more than your fair share of both.