A game I'm working on - Severed World

[Doohl]

Hey guys, long time no see! It's been at least a few years since I've been active here on tgstation, and a couple months since I stopped visiting the IRC channel. You might know me as the guy who made Telecomms and NTSL in like 2013, the two worst, most incomplete features to ever grace SS13. Sorry about that.

Anyway, the people I kept in touch with after my leave are aware that I've been silently toiling away at a game for 6 or 7 months now, and it's finally nearing the verge of becoming presentable and/or playable. However, games need money to maintain the people dedicating good chunks of their lives to it. And money is an extremely finite resource. Yep, you probably already guessed it - this is the part where I link you to a Kickstarter page:

The Kickstarter!

Now I'm not coming here to beg you to give us your cash. All I ask is that you take some time to see what we have, decide whether or not you like it, and leave a comment either here or on the KS page w/ some feedback preferably. This is our first commercial-grade rodeo, so keep in mind we may be currently fucking up or have fucked up something. If you do like what you see, please consider leaving a meager backing or just sharing the campaign with your buddies, your mom, your dad, and your metroids oh wait you assholes removed my fucking metroids.

[Maccus]

Gameplay looks pretty boring but you tell the artist you got for the portraits and stuff that I really like their work

[Doohl]

You can tell the dude yourself: http://el-sato.tumblr.com/

[cedarbridge]

The feature list sounds extremely over-ambitious and the kickstarter target matches it. Also, I really hope that's nowhere near a final render of the UI. If so I'd just pack it up now.

[Doohl]

The feature list sounds extremely over-ambitious and the kickstarter target matches it. Also, I really hope that's nowhere near a final render of the UI. If so I'd just pack it up now.

Considering most entries on the feature list are already complete or being worked on, I'd say it's not ambitious at all. We're asking for less money than what we initially invested in the game, too. Also, if you're talking about the UI here, the stats are displayed on-screen temporarily for special PvP events. That isn't representative of how the game looks. Even this, which is representative how it currently looks, is probably not our final version of the UI.

EDIT: We've also got a Steam Greenlight page worth checking out: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =444784534

[Tsaricide]

Chance is holding you back Doohl, cut him loose.

Oh and say hi to Yinadoodle for me, my invitation to her summer party must have got lost in the mail or something.

[Maccus]

Kill him, Doohl. Make the power play you've always wanted to do.

[Doohl]

I cannot endorse these murder encouragements.

[srifenbyxp]

Game looks decent and reminds of me phantasy star/ragnarok but with 16 bit graphics shits gata be high speed low drag body slayer Hwy 2 the dangerzone ninja gaiden flipping shit. I can see myself playing the game but not as long as any of the other mmos which are ruled by the korean standard. Looks good though, but almost short of my cup of tea.

[Jacquerel]

This doesn't look like my kind of game anyway, but if it had been then locking a class in an MMO behind being a kickstarter backer would have turned me away anyway. That's kind of bullshit.

[Timbrewolf]

Gameplay looks pretty boring but you tell the artist you got for the portraits and stuff that I really like their work

This doesn't look like my kind of game anyway, but if it had been then locking a class in an MMO behind being a kickstarter backer would have turned me away anyway. That's kind of bullshit.

[Doohl]

Thank you guys for being honest, at least! I realize the gameplay we've shown so far is... pretty bare-bones. But that's because we have very little actual content to show - for now. Most work so far has been back-end and with the game's core engine. Until then, what you see is what's done.

On the subject of the KS-exclusive class: Classes in Severed World are not like conventional MMO classes. They don't dramatically change the nature of how you play the game, they simply unlock passive abilities and active techniques. So really the exclusive "Berserker" class will just entail having 2-4 techniques non-backers won't have. We'll probably eventually let everyone play that class once we're stable, too.

[cedarbridge]

On the subject of the KS-exclusive class: Classes in Severed World are not like conventional MMO classes. They don't dramatically change the nature of how you play the game, they simply unlock passive abilities and active techniques. So really the exclusive "Berserker" class will just entail having 2-4 techniques non-backers won't have. We'll probably eventually let everyone play that class once we're stable, too.

I haven't had a version of the game I could sit down with and see what you mean here, but it sounds like a fairly flat design. Class-based games tend to work best when you fully commit to them. RO was a good example of that. If you saw a Crusader, you knew what to expect. Classes that half step to classes or try to go the "interchangable classes on the fly" thing tend to feel scatterbrained. Instead of having clear, vibrant classes that players can connect with you end up with "generic" swiss army knife avatars.

[Doohl]

Ordinarily yes, that would be correct. But specialization in this game does not revolve around classes themselves. It would be pretty boring if you were given a class prompt at the beginning of the game and asked, "Do you like hitting things, shooting things, or running around a lot?" to decide how you're going to spend the rest of the game fighting enemies. Specialization will come in investing points in stats and abilities from varying categories to progress further along a sort of "tech tree" that grants you better abilities in what you're specializing in. The classes are just extremely specific tech trees you can invest in. This means that when facing against other players in PvP, you have a more dynamic battlefield rather than just "tanks", "kiters", "melee guys", etc.

Still, though. You've raised some good points.