Starcraft MMO

[Statharas]

Creators of the 'StarCraft MMO' Seek $80,000 to Make It Free-to-Play

StarCraft Universe, the "StarCraft MMO" concept that got a bunch of Blizzard's lawyers itchy and nervous a couple of years ago, is aiming toward a full fledged release—with Blizzard's permisson—and is looking for $80,000 in Kickstarter funding to do so.

StarCraft Universe did release a version—SCU: Chronicles of Fate—over Battle.net earlier this year, but the mod was a singleplayer prologue meant to introduce players to the story and acclimate them to playing the game, said creator Ryan Winzen. StarCraft Universe will be fully multiplayer (and may be soloed), will incorporate typical MMO features like player progression, inventory retention and the like.

Winzen says players do not need to own a paid version of StarCraft II to play StarCraft Universe (or Chronicles of Fate, which acts as kind of a demo, for that matter). "You'll be able to play it with the free downloadable Starter Edition of StarCraft II" he said in an email.

StarCraft Universe is being made by a shop Winzen heads called Upheaval Arts. This game began life in 2011 as an MMO-style mod that Winzen and other collaborators built. Of course they called it "World of StarCraft," which got Blizzard's attention. The StarCraft developer wanted to be sure Winzen and his team wasn't screwing around with the game using something other than the official toolkit; they weren't. Once that understanding was reached, Winzen moved forward with the project, and Blizzard even flew him out for a meeting as a goodwill gesture.

StarCraft Universe, according to its pitch page, will feature four playable classes in two races each, Terran and Protoss, with player and weapon customization, usable vehicles with mounted passengers for combat, crafting, progression trees and a slew of features common to the MMO experience. Winzen is writing its story, set in an alternate StarCraft Universe, and voices will be supplied by actors who have worked on World of Warcraft and League of Legends.

The project is two days into its fundraiser and has raised $12,000 so far. If it can reach $100,000, the team will add a Zerg playable race. There's plenty more information, and other stretch goals, available at the link.

Source: Kotaku.com

 

[WaterKnight]

A lot of people spend a lot of time on their personal hobbies and projects. Seems to be a common method these days to go to kickstarter and beg for money after running into a financial deadlock, respectively at initio planning to put trust in others to account for occurring expenses. Vague promises, showmanship and luring with worthless digital goods as rewards. Intransparent and dubiously based on Blizzard's engine.

 

[Talavaj]

Good luck to them.
Although I'm way too skeptic over what exactly they need the 80k for. Honestly, they are way over their heads.
I wouldn't give them a dime and to have the audacity to suggest they might make a million is insane.
The "game" looks nothing more than a third person sc2 mod.

 

[Manoo]

I agree, hobies doesn't require financial support, they just want to make money. But mode looks promising good luck.

 

[Dark.Revenant]

It's a fully-featured Diablo-style RPG with elements from WoW. The systems are rather impressive. Full voice acting, countless new models, textures, and movies, etc. But I don't have to convince you.

Play the demo. It's on battle.net and is called something along the lines of "StarCraft Universe Prologue: Chronicles of Fate"

 

[Kartron]

seems interesting, but i never liked the idea of a starcraft MMO

 

[takakenji]

wtf do they need money for in sc2 modding

 

[deepstrasz]

So in order to make something free you want money first (at the current state it costs to play but if you pay a bigger amount now you'll play free after). Smart for one who fools, maybe. I'm guessing this is some sort of: We've taken care of you thinking of donating to us and thought it out for ya."

 

[Soliloquy]

the game is impressive and shiny but it plays absolutely awful (it's not really their fault though, reasons include Battle.net delay, etc) and you lose interest in it in the first minute. Something like Mafia you play over and over again but it's not some complex super-map.

 

[takakenji]

So in order to make something free you want money first (at the current state it costs to play but if you pay a bigger amount now you'll play free after). Smart for one who fools, maybe. I'm guessing this is some sort of: We've taken care of you thinking of donating to us and thought it out for ya."

what could they possibly be doing with the money? nobody on this website is running off 80k bux

 

[Soliloquy]

they are also asking for 1 million dollars +

 

[Dark.Revenant]

So in order to make something free you want money first (at the current state it costs to play but if you pay a bigger amount now you'll play free after). Smart for one who fools, maybe. I'm guessing this is some sort of: We've taken care of you thinking of donating to us and thought it out for ya."

It's always been free and this kickstarter doesn't change that. The $80,000 is so they can finish it at all.

And yes, it does cost that much. Look at the breakdown; they have costs like a full indie development company. That's because they ARE an indie development company.

they are also asking for 1 million dollars

Uh, no. They're asking for $80,000.

 

[Talavaj]

They're asking for $80,000.

That is the minimum goal, they will add extra stuff for every few k on top all the way up to one million (suggesting people are crazy enough to pay that much).

That's because they ARE an indie development company.

No they aren't they are wannabes who got way over their heads when they got some recognition, from what I read they all have/had regular jobs. It is nice they have many people to work on it but they need to really write down where the funds are going.
So far they have got "we got tired of working on this for free".
Their mod won't even come anywhere near to what a stand alone game would cost.
Even if we ignore all of that, it is still only a mod. It looks and plays like one.
Their "new" models are mashed up WoW and sc2 rips for god's sake.

The most hilarious (or saddest) thing is that they ask for 80k which they will get, for a game mod while many, nearly AAA quality games made by actual studios fail their campaigns every couple of weeks.
It is also sad Blizzard gave them a go, but hey why wouldn't they ? If it goes through it may bring more people into sc2 with an extra bonus from the microtransactions.

 

[Dark.Revenant]

No they aren't they are wannabes who got way over their heads when they got some recognition, from what I read they all have/had regular jobs. It is nice they have many people to work on it but they need to really write down where the funds are going.
So far they have got "we got tired of working on this for free".
Their mod won't even come anywhere near to what a stand alone game would cost.
Even if we ignore all of that, it is still only a mod. It looks and plays like one.
Their "new" models are mashed up WoW and sc2 rips for god's sake.

The most hilarious (or saddest) thing is that they ask for 80k which they will get, for a game mod while many, nearly AAA quality games made by actual studios fail their campaigns every couple of weeks.
It is also sad Blizzard gave them a go, but hey why wouldn't they ? If it goes through it may bring more people into sc2 with an extra bonus from the microtransactions.

What in your mind constitutes a legitimate development company? Upheaval Arts has employees and an in-production game, including a playable demo. That's more than a lot of those failed kickstarters can claim; many don't have anything playable. It's also worth noting that many indie devs have other jobs on the side, sometimes even a full-time job that they later quit to complete their games. One example off the top of my head is Fractal Softworks, maker of Starsector.

Also, SCU doesn't use WoW models. It's also impossible to rip models from SC2, considering the game is SC2 in the first place. Some of the models may be (to my knowledge; I'm not sure) based on original SC2 models, but the animations, final models, and most of the textures are entirely custom.

 

[Dr Super Good]

What will they pay the people back next to "additional content"? I was sure Kick Starter was for investing.

 

[PurgeandFire]

What will they pay the people back next to "additional content"? I was sure Kick Starter was for investing.

I doubt there is much else that they will offer. Kick Starter is, by its description, to raise funds. It isn't limited to investing.

Also, SCU doesn't use WoW models. It's also impossible to rip models from SC2, considering the game is SC2 in the first place. Some of the models may be (to my knowledge; I'm not sure) based on original SC2 models, but the animations, final models, and most of the textures are entirely custom.

From http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/747939120/starcraft-universe

-->

Kiefer 'Ghostnova' Traub, arguably the best kit basher in the world, rips apart, dissects, then re-imagines Blizzard assets in his own vision by combining and altering models and textures from World of WarCraft and StarCraft II. His art form allows for the creation of fully pre-animated model assets much faster than building them from scratch, and often has an equally as impressive result.

Image

----

Although, the models may not necessarily be their biggest boon. It has some neat things gameplay-wise, and I think it might serve as the basis of some interesting mods--e.g. hero arenas with progression, multi-map multiplayer mods (say that six times really fast), mmo-style maps, etc. For example, their vehicle system is pretty cool.

 

[Dark.Revenant]

Hm, so it's not completely custom but it's close to it, in any case. No matter how you slice it, those aren't rips any more than Andy Warhol's works are rips.

 

[deepstrasz]

If people feel happy about paying them for any purpose even if it's not true what they say, it's their freedom. Case closed.

 

[felixng2012]

Wow I thought it had no chance of reaching the 80k goal but its almost halfway. I played it. It was pretty good. I am generally skeptical of kickstarters but I sort of want to play an updated version of this. Someone actually paid 2500 dollars o..o.

 

[RiotZ]

How is it an MMO if it's not /jump-in-and-play/.

 

[WaterKnight]

Someone actually paid 2500 dollars o..o.

Maybe it was Blizz D:

 

[Meticulous]

How is it an MMO if it's not /jump-in-and-play/.

Yeah that's definitely a bit of a misbranding. It has MMO style gameplay, I guess - and probably fetch quests and whatnot - but I wouldn't really call that a strong point, personally. The selling point of a Massively Multiplayer game is... that it's Massively Multiplayer. This is more along the lines of Diablo or Torchlight but with gameplay closer to what people expect from MMOs.

Anyway, this whole kickstarter for a free mod thing is very interesting to me. I wonder if Blizzard is getting a cut of this or something. Either way it's probably nothing but good for them, they probably saw the bad press they received after they tried to shut these guys down initially and learned from it. Seems like the first steps towards taking SC2 and BNet in the direction of a semi-commercial engine you don't need a license to publish on.

 

[Magtheridon96]

80k huh.

Unless they're using it to pay royalties for audio and images, I don't see any reason why they should have a kickstarter.
Most likely, they're using it to buy nice things and pay for their rent. (And feed themselves)
In that case, I assume this is a fulltime thing.

You can make a whole stand-alone game with $0 :| (Assuming you have a computer already~)
You would need funds to pay for whatever engine you're using (I'm not using someone else's, I'm using my own ;D), for a license and a spot in whatever store you choose and for ads optionally~


Frankly, I don't feel comfortable giving my money to some random person so they can get wasted on a Saturday night or buy a prostitute while they make a Starcraft II map I don't even care about.

 

[Dark.Revenant]

The breakdown of the costs is right on the kickstarter page. And yes, development is full-time.

 

[Colonist]

loh.. why hate noobs? Cause your silly warcraft projects will never reach such importance

 

[Soliloquy]

loh.. why hate noobs? Cause your silly warcraft projects will never reach such importance

You are right... I am a noob, but that's not the reason why I'm hating. It's because I'm a QQing whining reddit troll. Join the Barry club?

The map is nice and impressive as I said, but it's close to unplayable, and combat is button mashing. One of the reasons for this is due to the horrendous Battle.net lag.

 

[WaterKnight]

Sc2 still has inbuilt delay even in custom games?

 

[Soliloquy]

Even if it doesn't, movement and such feels like using a broken truck against a Ferrari in a race.

 

[deepstrasz]

Yeah that's definitely a bit of a misbranding.
I wonder if Blizzard is getting a cut of this or something.

Wait what? Lineage is a MMO and you don't jump there at least not outside a spell or cinematic.
Maybe BlizzEnt thought of this from the start. They had their men planted as indies and then "sued" them only to gain more success. Maybe it's paranoid but do you know the actual deal?

Frankly, I don't feel comfortable giving my money to some random person so they can get wasted on a Saturday night or buy a prostitute while they make a Starcraft II map I don't even care about.

Obviously, if you don't care about the map you don't pay. You're not buying apples just to buy them...

 

[peq]

Sc2 still has inbuilt delay even in custom games?

Of course. I think all strategy games use the Simultaneous Simulations technique.

I am sure Blizzard won't add a completely different networking model for some custom games which want to implement a Shooter or RPG with the engine.

 

[Vinz]

loh.. why hate noobs? Cause your silly warcraft projects will never reach such importance

My, the tension. You should not really let insults fly from your mouth like slaves yearning for freedom. As if you would receive any reward for insulting someone?

 

[Marshmalo]

What complete waste of 80k!

Project Titan which Blizz are working on quite obviously a SC MMO, they are following the same highly sucessful model for World of Warcraft. Why can;t these people do something original.

 

[deepstrasz]

Why can;t these people do something original.

Writes you who enlists the projects named and about WarCraft and The Elder Scrolls.

 

[blacklabel]

Why they don't have ask Blizzard producers ?

 

[DPL]

> Implying Blizzard can't give 80k

 

[Marshmalo]

Writes you who enlists the projects named and about WarCraft and The Elder Scrolls.

I'm not asking for 80k for my projects

With that amount of money I could do something original yes.

 

[Talavaj]

It won't be anything like Titan, heck we don't know if Titan will be at all.
All we know is that titan has nothing to do with SC, it won't be anything like WoW and is currently barely in development, which was restarted from a scratch just a couple of months ago and barely anybody from Blizz works on it at the moment so it won't be coming out in the next few years.

Don't worry if Blizz thought SCU would be anything like their future projects they wouldn't give it a go.
That being said... why would they give them the 80k ? They are pretty much guaranteed to reach their kickstarter goal, they are halfway there now but with about two thirds of time to go.

 

[Steel_Stallion]

As a modding project this looks grand and stuff. It's not something I would play, however.

All this is is a novelty. This is not going to make a good MMO. And it's most certainly not something I would invest money into. This is a modding project, a hobby, that they claim to be working on in their off time. They're not leaving their jobs, therefore this money is not used to pay for their livelihoods (nor should it), it's a modding project so everything except possible assets such as audio, images, etc. are free.

This is, in the end, a glorified hobbyist project. I'm strongly against people using Kickstarter to fund a modding project. If your project gets to the point where it needs funding to succeed... stop modding and just do actual video game development.

I mean, take a look at their fucking pie chart:

Most of the money is going towards something called "Content Development". What the fuck does that mean? The SC2 modding tools used for content development are fucking free to use (in the sense that they're not some expensive licensed development tools), nor are any of these people quitting their day jobs for this project.


Yeah sorry, I don't buy this. It smells like a bunch of bullshit to me. I feel sorry for anyone stupid enough to invest in these money grubbing fakes.

As a modding project? Impressed.

As a modding project that tries to facade itself as an actual game project and asks for funding? Worthless.

They even call themselves a "game company" and have a name and logo and everything. How cute.

 

[Vinz]

Yeah sorry, I don't buy this. It smells like a bunch of bullshit to me. I feel sorry for anyone stupid enough to invest in these money grubbing fakes.

As a modding project? Impressed.

As a modding project that tries to facade itself as an actual game project and asks for funding? Worthless.

They even call themselves a "game company" and have a name and logo and everything. How cute.

True. Everyone makes projects, yet they feel special enough for those.

 

[Dark.Revenant]

Most high-end modding projects have a high true cost. Take a look at something like MechWarrior: Living Legends and see how much it cost them to make, even on a team where nobody is paid.

StarCraft Univese faces a similar problem, except that not all of their members are free. Additionally, that Content Development slice of the pie can be better described as "Wages"; the lead devs on the team are working full time (or close to it, depending on circumstance). Asking them to keep a job while running SCU is effectively impossible, based on the number of hours that SCU uses up each week. I would go so far as to say that if they were forced to halve (or most likely, quarter) their modding hours as a result of getting more work to fund the project, it would never finish.

Also I can personally say that they do have a large amount of content in the works, all of which is of a quality that leaves other starcraft maps in the dust. Once completed, everything will have the same (or better) production quality as the prologue.

By the way, if this wasn't a mod, the costs would be 10 times higher, bare minimum.

P.S. I like how you called me a money-grubbing fake.

 

[Soliloquy]

P.S. I like how you called me a money-grubbing fake.

Well, Mafia is well-known for having troll-moderators and all the donor stuff. Blizzard called you up or whatever about it, after all.

 

[Dark.Revenant]

Oh, of course. I don't deny being money-grubbing, like many businessmen. But fake? No, I am not fake.

The other team members aren't even money-grubbing, nor are they fakes. I'm probably the worst one.

 

[TaShadan]

Looks great but iam not a fan of mmos.

 

[Soliloquy]

Oh, of course. I don't deny being money-grubbing, like many businessmen. But fake? No, I am not fake.

The other team members aren't even money-grubbing, nor are they fakes. I'm probably the worst one.

cut out Cits and I won't care, also rename the Arsonist back to Terrorist as he was in WC3

 

[deepstrasz]

With that amount of money I could do something original yes.

You could also do without.
But as people are entitled to different opinions, contradictions won't stop unless boredom and tiredness blanket the thread.

 

[Rui]

http://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/general/general-chat/57579-starcraft-universe-reaches-80-000-goal/

They did it, they reached 80,000$

 

[Adiktuz]

seriously, I do wonder why people easily give funds to these kickstarter campaigns as opposed to giving money to the poor people...

 

[WaterKnight]

Because they see those projects do benefit own interests more and possess a clearer goal.

 

[Marshmalo]

seriously, I do wonder why people easily give funds to these kickstarter campaigns as opposed to giving money to the poor people...

On that ethos you could say why do people spend mony on computer games and entertainment when they should give their money to charity...

 

[Talavaj]

Except you aren't guaranteed any games or entertainment when kickstarting a project.
You are essentially paying for promises.
Kickstarted projects are not legally bound to deliver what they promise (or anything at all for that matter), and the crowd funding services cannot be held responsible and will do nothing to ensure the crowd-funded project actually goes through.
A good few projects were successfully funded but never finished with the backers getting nothing in return, others were flat out fraudulent and used the funds for personal gain.
Which is something I'd be veery wary of this in this particular case, seeing how their stretch goals sound like an utter BS.

But hey, it is up to the people what they want to do with their money.