What other Online Games besides MWO do you else play?

I tried MW tactics for a bit (purchased a founder package, was a bit unimpressed and got refunded, then played the stress test a few weeks ago to see how things were progressing) and it is still quite rough around the edges but it certainly has potential. I'm also not very impressed with some of the models they created for most of the 'mechs and the lack of a robust chat functionality for finding matches.

 

I go back and play MWT every couple of weeks to see if it's gotten much better. It crashes less, and has considerably fewer graphical glitches, but now I have issues getting into the game and authenticating. Figured it was time to put it on hold for another couple of weeks.

 

How do you like WarFrame? I have heard mixed things about the UI being clunky, but that is mitigated by gameplay quality being well-done and fun for co-op. At a glance it looks graphically sexy as well.

 

Currently I play WOT, EVE Online/ Dust 514, have to, I work for CCP

 

Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss... you are the ENEMY!!!! I liked you right up until then LOL

 

So what's the word from IKSland regarding the incredible crowdfunding success of Star Citizen/ Squadron 42 ?
(19 millions and just 32000$ to go for breaking the 20th million).

 

The Tally

Between October 10th and November 19th 2012, the Star Citizen project (www.robertsspaceindustries.com) raised a whopping $4,104,189.00, using a custom version of the IgnitionDeck WordPress crowdfunding plugin.

The Kickstarter campaign, running between October 19th and November 19th, 2012, raised an additional $2,134,374.00.

Since the campaigns have closed (May 3rd, 2013), Star Citizen has also received an additional $3,044,770.00 through its website using IgnitionDeck.

The Takeaways

Your starting goal should not be your actual, final goal (that should be much higher).
Start building excitement early (before you’ve even said you’ll be crowdfunding)
Have something special for those earliest supporters (it’s incentive to stay excited)
Start working on the press prior to your launch (Just ask they don’t publish till the launch)
Create a home for your community to gather (A place away from the money raising)
Be honest with your community about what you want to raise, but keep the stretch goal incentives of how you’ll get there hidden until the time is right.
Give the ability for your supporters to customize their rewards and up their pledges.
Make the final week of your campaign all about your supporters. They’re the reason this is all going to become a reality, so give them as much praise as you can.
The Project Origin

Wing CommanderIn the middle of July, 2012, IgnitionDeck was contacted by Chris Roberts and his team to help them create a secret website that would launch on September 10th – to allow for a special ‘preview’ of what was to come. What was to come, a month later, was a full Crowdfunding campaign in order to create the most ambitious space sim ever conceived. For those who aren’t aware, Chris Roberts is the creator of the massively popular video game Wing Commander, and producer of a few movies like Lord of War, Lucky Number Slevin and Outlander.

The goal? 2 million dollars.
The hope? 6 million dollars.

In talking to them, we knew that their ambitions were high. The timeframe was short: five weeks to launch. The goal huge: to design and build a full, private member ready, crowdfunding website with 4 different payment gateways, an extended affiliate system and member dashboard.

With that enormous weight on our shoulders, the IgnitionDeck team set out to build a website that would act first as a secret, member-only ‘behind-the-scenes’ look, at what Chris Roberts was cooking up. This would consist of a custom HTML5 animated intro counting down to launch day (October 10th), leading to a welcome letter, leading to a registration page, leading to a special members content dashboard, multiple blog categories, forums, another countdown, and The Golden Ticket.

The Golden Ticket

RSI-golden-ticketChris Roberts had the idea to present each early registrant to Roberts Space Industries with a special Golden Ticket. This golden ticket allowed entry to Chris’ big announcement at GDC Online on October 10th. It also allowed a special in-game skin only available to the Golden Ticket Holders. This Golden Ticket proved to be a hot item and really got people excited to jump in early.

Those Crazy Fans

For a scheduled stress-test by the whole team, we took down the password-protected member wall for a period of 2 hours so we could really put the registration process through the wringer. During this small period of time, some amazing Reddit sleuths discovered the site, and managed to register an account. Before we realized what was going on, seven people that were NOT part of the dev team, had snuck in. From this small accident came a massive windfall of traffic and super sleuths. People were discussing heavily what this new project by Chris Roberts could be. What could he be cooking up?

Thanks to all this unplanned attention, when the countdown went up (before this it was just a ‘coming soon’ page) and registration opened officially there was a flood of new members being registered. About 20 per minute. It was so fast that we had to double check everything and ensure these were not bots of some sort (they weren’t). Let’s just say, we had more new members registered in the first day than we had initially forecasted for the entire month.

We capitalized on this attention by praising those that discovered the site early, and by working overtime to make everyone feel extra special for being there already. The ‘special content’ that was planned to be released over a course of a month we let loose in a week. It was very important everyone stay as excited as they were when they first got there.

The Press

While a secret members area was created to build excitement for the project, so too was a press tour setup to enable the rest of the world to know about Star Citizen the day the crowdfunding went live. Chris Roberts flew round the world to do interviews and demonstrations of Star Citizens current preview build – and all press was scheduled to go live at the exact same time his talk started at GDC Online. 9am CST, October 10th, 2012.

The thing was, the crowdfund itself wasn’t meant to go live until he was finished his talk at 10am. What ended up happening was an extreme amount of traffic arrived at the site, and all this traffic kept refreshing the page in order to see what would appear at any moment.

This slowed the site to a crawl, and before we’d even gone live our server was overwhelmed. We worked round the clock for 48 straight hours to get everything into tip top shape once more, and it most certainly affected the outcome of the ‘day one raise,’ which is always considered the most important when starting a crowdfund.

The Community

However, what seemed like a deficit was in fact one of the reasons Star Citizen raised as much money as it ultimately did. Because of the problems, a lot of the community rallied around the project that much more. With a strong desire to see it succeed at all costs, we were able to develop a closer knit community because of it.

What we realized working with such a close knit community, while being a project very much in the public eye, was that we needed to focus on making the biggest fans happy first. These were the people that had plunked down their hard earned money to put their money where their mouth was. These were the people that were going to bat for us all over the internet, on forums, comment sections on blogs, and in the social media sites. What they asked for always took precedence over what the sideline critics were complaining about.

When crunch time hits, and you need just that much more to cross the finish line, it’s your existing community that will make that difference. Ensure those people are your top priority.

star-citizen-stretch-goalsThe Stretch Goals

Stretch goals have become somewhat of a norm when it comes to crowdfunding. A stretch goal is when you’ve hit your first goal, and you’re giving your community incentive to go further. Why should they give more, if you already have enough? With more money, what will your project be able to achieve?

Star Citizen came out of the gate with a goal of 2 Million dollars to raise – already the highest starting goal ever set for a crowdfund project. We knew going into it that Chris wanted to raise at least 6 million in order to truly create the game he envisioned. The decision was made early on to reveal that number straight away, but to keep stretch goal values hidden for later. A general outline of what raising 2 million meant versus raising 6 million was provided so everyone went in with the right expectations.

The real excitement inducing stretch goals were revealed slowly, and as each was discovered, the focus became on hitting that goal in order to learn what the next one would be. Because the stretch goals remained hidden, it kept the community wanting to learn more. This kept word of mouth flowing, as everyone was telling everyone they could in order to have their curiosity satiated.

Reward Customization

Something that was really introduced during the crowdfunding campaigns for the videogames Project Eternity and Planetary Annihilation was the concept of reward customization. The ability to look at what you’d pledged for and add to it. Also get a t-shirt, a book and/or a physical copy of the game.

Star Citizen took reward customization to a whole new level, by implementing add-ons into their IgnitionDeck website. The ability to pledge more, in order to get that book, or that physical model of your in-game ship, was actually requested by the supporters. What really took off however, was when the supporters could pledge more money and get in-game items as well. A way to see the game they so want to play get made, and also have even more fun in that game when it gets released also.

Chris Roberts ensured that all bought items were not extra special in any way, aside from ensuring you had them at the start. There was never any game imbalancing item that would ruin the gameplay for others. This was important, and it showed the community that extra money wasn’t going to compromise the game he was setting out to make.

Supporters were able to see every item they pledged towards in their own private member dashboard – and upgrade any item at any time. This allowed for people to really get whatever they wanted, that was available to pledge towards. What happened, was there became a select group of ‘collectors’ who began tallying the ships and other in-game items they would be receiving. When a new ship was announced – these collectors wanted to be able to say they had it.

The Final Week

The general consensus is that the first few days are the most important of any crowdfund. And this is certainly true – if your first few days don’t go well, it will be hard to climb from that and still hit your goal. But it’s still possible, as Star Citizen showcased.

The real time to shine is in the final week push, as in the case of Star Citizen, and in watching very closely that of the Double Fine Adventure Game, Planetary Annihilation and Project Eternity. In each case, that final week represented some amazing numbers as far as new supporters goes, and also the work from the project teams to really up the excitement and showcase their dedication to the project.

As soon as your project campaign ends, there will be an initial high for your supporters and your team. Then, there will be a period where you need to recoup your energy, and your supporters will wonder what happens next. Your final week of your campaign gives you a chance to really show your supporters that everything they’ve been excited about has been worth it. That everything they hope for is going to be a reality, and that they were right to put their faith in you.

Take your last week to give them more than they expected, to give them a thank you gift, and to make them feel like they are the number one reason this is going to happen. Make that final week about your supporters, and not about you.

Listen To Your Supporters

Make sure you have someplace your supporters can talk. Make sure you listen. The chances are VERY high, that if those that have already pledged to you have given you money, they are speaking for those that have not given you money as well.

With Star Citizen, the supporters started asking very early on if they could get T-Shirts, and a boxed edition of the game. They wanted to pledge more to get in-game items. We heard it all. And they kept asking.

Here was the thing – because we didn’t get those things up right away, they thought we didn’t hear them. They thought we were refusing to meet their wishes. This wasn’t true, at all. It just takes time to implement things you hadn’t planned for. And believe me, they’re going to ask for stuff you didn’t think of. So don’t try to think of it all ahead of time. Instead, start slowly and be prepared to iterate fast, and meet the wishes of your supporters. You’ll help your campaign more than you can ever realize.

$4,104,189.00 in 39 days

This is an incredible number. And it’s definitely not an easy achievement. This campaign had a lot going for it from the start, number one being from a superstar game designer in Chris Roberts. However, that doesn’t mean that one can’t learn from everything that was done to make this campaign a success. Study what we’ve written out above, and put into action those things that feel right for your campaign.

We’re very proud of the work we did with the Roberts Space Industries team and the success of Star Citizen. IgnitionDeck was put through the paces on this huge crowdfunding campaign, and came out better for it. Now everyone who uses IgnitionDeck has the advantage of being battle-tested and ready for anything, thanks to Star Citizen.

 

I should play this Alternative. What you say? Anyone played it already??



The Air is much tighter than in MWO, don't you think?

 

Thanks, I suppose. Incredible copy-paste worksmanship there.

 

MWO is pretty much it. Otherwise, I'm outside playing disc golf, SCA heavy($$$!!) and/or Amtgard(way cheaper way to beat on fools).

 

I hope that MWO improves alot in the next year. If not, I will maybe play something more promising like Titanfall.



More Story, more Gamemodes, more Action, more Teamplay. I hope that PGI really includes much more of the Battletech-Universe with the next patches to keep/extend its Fanbase. Or i see upcoming Dark Ages for them

 

Yeah... Titanfall will be EPIC... if not for EA... Get ready for micro-transactions, excessive DLC, DRM, and cheesed mechanics. I have HUGE hopes, but, low expectations. I really, REALLY want it to be as epic as the hype, but, just haven't seen EA actually pull it off. I hope it doesn't fall the way of CoD (which I can't stand) but imagine it will.

But, god, I hope it is good as the media looks.

 

If you like FPS, check out Red Orchestra 2 & the new xpac (that includes RO2), Rising Storm.





or check the original Red Orchestra.

 

waaargh, this maintenance is taking soo long. Enjoy some moments with LoL - today is Patchday - and my favorite Champ "Garen" got some visual updates, which make him look awesomely more powerful!

old Visuals:


updated:


:wub:

No other LoL.Players among us?

 

Honestly, if I'm not gaming, I'm usually doing something along the lines of self-education. This year I picked up learning programming. I'm hoping I can turn that into a career. IT just isn't doing it for me anymore.

 

I started to play Diablo3 and i must say it looks Great but doesn't have the depth of its predecessors. Just like MWO. Why?

 

Diablo 3 was a massive letdown for both me and the wife. I took 2 days off to play after release, and didn't get to play until the day I had to go back to work. Then, once we completed it, it was just a collective "WTF? That was it?" from our group. Felt like a waste of $120 (two copies).

Shallow gameplay experiences seems to be the growing norm for AAA titles based on deep and rich franchises.

 

Yeaah LoL gets another new Patch with new Champ! And how does Riot Games marketize this new shit? With an awesome new Trailer!

(If she only had more Boobs.. )​

PGI should create some new marketing strategies by doing something similar to hype the community as well!