Crowfall, and I why I’m still stoked

I’m not a huge MMO guy.  I like Eve Online quite a bit, and there are enough reasons for that that I could write another piece about.  Other than that, I’m not generally about MMO’s.  I’ve tried lots of them, most notably Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, but they didn’t strike my fancy enough for me to stick with them.  So it’s a bit odd that I would be still be excited for an MMO over year after I paid for it.

The first reason I’m still excited about Crowfall is that I get updates from the staff pretty regularly.  I’m a software engineer, and have been working on the same thing for almost year.  We’re still finding stuff that’s wrong or that need improvement.  I understand that development takes time, and I happy their taking their time to do it right.  I don’t feel worried that they’ve taken my money and run though, because I get emails once a week or so with updates from the studio.  I actually get to see the progress and see how things are moving along.  I feel safe.

That’s all well and good, but the reason I’m really stoked is because this is everything I want in an MMO.  First, I like the flavor of fantasy more than sci-fi/space.  That’s just superficial though.  I’ll list some game play reasons.  Follow this link for more details.

1. I like the character progression system.  Leveling up is frustrating for people that don’t have all day to grind, or didn’t start playing the game on day 1.  By using a system similar to Eve’s, your character will gain experience whether you’re online or not.  By leveling up skills instead of your character, it also allows you to specialize quickly if you’re new to the game.
2. I like the character specialization system.  It reminds me of D&D.  So you pick your archetype (class) and then you can add all kinds of advantages and disadvantages, disciplines (feats), specializations (prestige class).  It just seems like there’ll be a lot of room for creativity.
3. I like the campaign worlds.  One frustration I have with Eve is that the world of Eve is very established.  There are these huge alliances that occasionally have battles big enough to get mentioned on kotaku, but for the most part they control the galaxy.  The fact that these campaign worlds only last for a couple months means that there are always opportunities to establish power.
4. I like the feudalism!  The idea of guilds, clans, or corporations is something I care about.  I consider myself a social game, and I want to play with friends.  The eternal kingdom part of the game looks very enticing to me for that reason.  It makes guild roles more tangible to me.  The hierarchy is very clear, and looks like it’ll play a big role in the game.

I obviously can’t do a real review until I’ve actually played, and I can’t play until the beta starts (I wasn’t rich enough for alpha).  That said, I’ll just try to get some more people on this hype train with me.  I hope to see some of you in game.  Hopefully I can convince Justin to play, and we’ll lord over any one that wants to be lorded over.

Are you excited for Crowfall?  Think it looks dumb?  Already got to play it?  Like or hate Eve Online?  Want me to write about something else?  Any other questions/comments?  Let me know in the comments.