So...

[Cypher]

Who is to say the same things (behind the scene issues, money issues, and all that fun stuff) that happened to Firefall won't happen to this? Checking for a gauge of interest for a new game based on ideas and goals for another game you've already tried to do feels weird as there was clearly an interest or else Firefall wouldn't have a player base that would be willing to climb onto another promise of a (VERY) future game with the same ideas and goals. Repeating the same mistakes is an easy thing to do, and I feel like it could very well be in the cards for this new adventure.

However, despite my lack of faith and optimism, I hope it works out. I enjoyed Firefall back in the day I'll stay informed as I've had an account for Firefall since 2011 and was in the closed beta when it was opened up 24/7 in 2012... so, I've been around, lurking in the shadows.

Good luck to the devs and the community.

 

[NitroMidgets]

Dear 7lb 3oz baby noodle monster jesus in his little white cloud crib in the sky, can you imagine the angry pitchfork wielding dirty masses of gamers that would bring out?
Many players ended up at their forums because of the concept. It really was good. Having looked behind the curtain at Red5, it could have been so much better. If they can keep Webzen and The9 away from the game then all should be fine.
I totally understand ones lack of faith and optimism. The games old community really did endure a fair bit of needless BS. I am not going to jump on the bandwagon again without some serious convincing but the forums are great because it brought a lot of the old community back together. Even some people who I didn't see eye to eye with, I still like having them around.

If the game does in fact go into development, they might want to go easy on the NDA's this time around. Transparency would go a long ways to building confidence in their old player base.

 

[Mahdi]

Very well worded, Nitro. I am one of those gunho about Ember, but there is a great sense of reality, patience and practicality in your perspective. Mark is planning this the right way and I genuinely feel Ember will happen.

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

If they can keep Webzen and The9 away from the game then all should be fine.

Wasn't it more than just those two?
i doubt you can toss all the problems of Red5 down on those two.
Before they came into the picture wasn't there money and management problems before?

edit...
everyone makes mistakes and time moves on. Sometimes people learn from those past experiences and become better for it. It's the reason I'm here. There is a possibility of improvement.

 

[Ammara]

So you're giving up before even trying. Those kind of issues exist in pretty much everything. You won't get anywhere in life with that attitude.

 

[mayhemmike]

The way I see it, this is still in the thought process and finding out if there is real interest in this project. The only funding that they have done as of yet was for this website which turned out great. So for now I dont see why anyone wouldnt have a problem showing interest. Later on when and if the small crowdfunding mile stones start coming up and someone is still iffy about the project, they dont have to put anything in money wise until they feel comfortable. And its something they can walk away from if its something they done like the direction it is going.

Right now all they are looking for is an investment of interest to see if its worth it for them to put in the time and effort to start building this game. Yes there was a fuster cluck with R5 and Firefall, but that shouldnt stand in the way of this game. And if anything there enough mistakes and pitfalls learned that, I hope, will help build this game and dev team stronger.

I see the same community that was in Firefall here so that already gives me a reason to keep interest in the direction of this project

 

[Mahdi]

I still don't understand how people ignore the timeline and success of firefall. Yea there were mistakes and lessons learned. But ff was still riding high. Kern leaves through what ever process and at launch the game tanks. If it was so bad why have these anonymous ex red5 employees said they would volunteer to do certain things? Couldn't have been that bad huh?

My personal example. I used to work for Akebono. Due to management's bad business decisions that plant worked seven days a week through 80% of the holidays in the year. You want to tick a finger for all the problems, attitudes, all out fights, safety incidents, high turn over rate etc but guess what. That plant still made a lot of money for the company. So with firefall having internal issues (what job doesn't) and it's reworks etc, it was still successful until Mark left.

 

[Torgue_Joey]

until Mark left.

Coulda make that big and fat.
People tend to ignore that part.

 

[Verterdegete]

Well, this project is fighting an uphill battle, that's for sure.

1. MMO genre is practically dead. There isn't a single AAA project in the making. And the big players on the market like WoW, SWTOR, GW2 etc. are slowly dying out. Due to this drastic fall of interest, it's very hard to create hype for a new project, let alone transcend interest from MMO fanbase to general gaming population.

2. Firefall isn't really that much popular in the first place. The game was received with very mixed impressions. Yes, this is a project that aims to recreate principles of the Beta version of Firefall, but that doesn't mean much if the BETA was played by a limited group of people, and there are very few records of how that BETA actually looked like.

3. It also doesn't help that a lot of people are blaming Grummz for ruining Firefall's chances to succeed. They really hate Grummz. Some even on a pathological level. They naively believe that you can put all the blame for a failing 100 million project - on a single person. It's clear that Mark made some missteps/bad decisions, but I think it's unfair to make him a scapegoat for something that was the fault of the entire upper management, and most probably the investors.

4. The crowdfunding craze is pretty much over. Most of the crowdfunded games turned out to be complete and utter failures, and the few that were received well were just decent and nothing more.
_______________________________________________________________________________



On the bright side. Sandbox survival games and arcade shooters appear to be the future of the gaming market. Ember, as hybrid of these two has more than a decent chance of success. If it's executed properly of course. Now, it's just a question if Mark can organize enough money and talented people to do this.

 

[Mahdi]

I dig what you are saying but how big does a project have to be to be successful? I meant that as an honest question so everyone can pitch in. Curious for more perspectives.

But, do you have to hit the 12.4 million mark like WoW did for peak numbers? Hell no. People don't realize that it could be simply 300k people playing an mmo with sub for it to continue developing content. Think of Pantheon, they are only aiming for a niche people. Ember won't have a sub and probably wont hit 300k players, but 100k people buying into the content/cosmetics would be enough to continue funding the module release that Mark is aiming for. AAA companies are rehashing everything (Battlefront/Call of Duty) or using actually psychological developing methods and sales pitches like Destiny for their greed and honestly not delivering much of anything with any of its xpacs. that I detest. I am lovin' the small development teams and Indie games out there. Crowd funding on a small scale will get this going. Mark is playing this smart to protect both sides. Until there is something playable no one can say anything about Ember and its future.

 

[TankHunter678]

2. Firefall isn't really that much popular in the first place. The game was received with very mixed impressions. Yes, this is a project that aims to recreate principles of the Beta version of Firefall, but that doesn't mean much if the BETA was played by a limited group of people, and there are very few records of how that BETA actually looked like.

The time period when Firefall was popular was when Kern was in charge. People were clamoring to get into the CBT. 1.5 million people who signed up hoping to get into the closed beta. People liked what they saw.

Then internal problems started manifesting in game patches and it got worse from there just in time for Open Beta. The problems only got worse from there. Ultimately the deviation from the original goal and the outright obliteration of their marketing is what finished it off.

 

[DARKB1KE]

Sandbox survival games and arcade shooters appear to be the future of the gaming market.

Even these are not looking so great in my opinion. If you don't enjoy PVP then you're going to have a bad time playing these, as most people either group with friends or gank up on others in massive groups, preying on the weak and solo players. Secondly the amount of hours needed to get stronger to survive is astronomical, and that's just not possible for people with full time jobs or family life. This creates a bad scene for the casual player and they will be pushed away from trying.

Some comments from a review of ARK: Survival Evolved

Those that spend more time than you will always beat you, regardless of your skill.

Just left a server today after being followed and trolled on for hours was only lvl 25, didnt feel like spending 27 days being followed around, should be some limit to how much land we can take these people are so far ahead of everyone else and such dicks they dont even make it fun, killing low lvls till they leave might as well be on their own damn server. I just wanted to chill on my boat, Im up for pvp just not being trolled on everything i build made what ever they wrecked it.

Can only lose so much time for nothing before you quit. PVP is a joke. Spending all that time to have someone wipe you out while your offline is ridiculous. I dont recommend PVP at all. Even on the PVE servers, My friend and I had a colossus estate with months and months of work. Took a little break to play another game and when we returned, we were just a couple hours late of the deadline before anyone can just loot and destroy all your work. It was all gone. Game immediately uninstalled. Its a trolls playground.

The combat in this game is downright terrible, and feels like a sub par skyrim. If you fight on foot you have to exploit terrain. If you fight on a dino either you run around holding left click or do dive bombs with a pteradon, and thats it. 50% or more of your time will literally be standing infront of a rock, tree, or plant holding left click or spamming left click.

"You shouldn't have to play a game 6-8 hours a day so that it's 'fun'

This is pretty much why I've steered clear of the MMO Survival genre despite being intriuged by it. I understand the genre is going to be dominated by the players who have the most time to devote to the game and most times player skill rarely plays into it. And I suppose that's fine though probably not very sustainable from a development standpoint; which explains why there's 500 "Day-Z" clones around but not a single one that's actually left Early Access. Great review by the way.

If you are a new player who has a limited number of hours to put into the game, you shouldn't get curbstomped. Even MMORPGs have limits so high level players don't troll the newbs. OP is saying that it is hard for anyone to progress past a day or so of play because once you get past stone shelters you become a target.

You shouldn't be equals, but it should either be A: Easier to fight a higher level player in packs, forcing lower level players to band together to fight the bullies or B: More difficult/less rewarding for higher level players to stomp newbies.

I for one built a shelter near a tribe of friendly people. Little did I know that they had killed an ultra player's pets for meat. This ultra player tracked them down and destroyed them and demolished their structures. Suddenly he decided that I was a threat too so he killed me and trashed my base as well.

It took me almost a full day of play to build my base. He destroyed it in minutes.

I haven't played ARK since.

Screw survival games.

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

Screw survival games.

I can agree with on on multi-player survival games or games like EVE.
Single player survival games are still better.
For example:

That's because you don't have to worry about other players messing your stuff up but rather the game doing it to you.
It's easier to compensate for a game than it's to the randomness of the common man.