This week in MMO crowdfunding news, Above & Beyond announced that Hero Engine company Idea Fabrik has acquired all rights to its indie sci-fi sandbox MMORPG The Repopulation and will be relaunching the game — in the Hero Engine — with a new content patch sometime in Q1 2017. The game had originally raised $230,000 in Kickstarter funds in 2012 and 2014 and made it to early access in 2014, only to become entangled in a financial drama with Idea Fabrik over a year ago, which kept the game offline for a year while A&B built Fragmented with the goal of porting Repop to Unreal. The port will no longer be happening, but A&B is still working on Fragmented’s console version. Definitely check out our whole article on what’s up — we’ve got an exclusive interview with A&B there as well.
Meanwhile,
- Shards Online formally launched its always-on alpha. Don’t miss our playthrough from this afternoon with the devs!
- Pathfinder Online isn’t dead! They’re just still trying to work out funding to get the game finished and out the door with a different publisher.
- Shroud of the Avatar players are running a GoFundMe to help the community buy out the extensive in-game holdings of a long-time hardcore SOTA backer who’s recently been diagnosed with cancer and needs funds (thanks, Chad, and good luck!).
- Crowfall hit another funding stretch goal, explained its resource harvesting changes, and sat for an investor Q&A as its Indiegogo equity crowdfunding campaign winds down this coming Monday.
Read on for more on what’s up with MMO crowdfunding over the last few weeks and the regular roundup of all the crowdfunded MMOs we’ve got our eye on!
Shroud of the Avatar
Recent MMO crowdfunding news
The Repopulation will relaunch in Q1 2017, now owned by Idea Fabrik - "Great News! The Repopulation is coming back!" -- or so said a hastily deleted tweet from Idea Fabrik last night, which you might have missed since the blog post titled…
Pathfinder Online in talks with anonymous ‘game agency’ for further development - Saying that 2016 was a year of "exciting promises" and "disappointing letdowns" for Pathfinder Online, Goblinworks Acting CEO Lisa Stevens said that she's trying a new tack in 2017. Right now,…
Camelot Unchained glues together beta build elements - "Despite the East Coast winter plague, we’ve continued to make steady progress gluing together several of our core elements for Beta 1," Camelot Unchained's team reports in this week's update…
Chronicles of Elyria adds City of Heroes animator to the team - Soulbound Studios has a new year's resolution for Chronicles of Elyria: "kick so much ass." "The next few months will see us preparing a playable demo for PAX East and…
Here’s how Star Citizen’s alien languages are being constructed from nothing - "Don't waste your time learning Klingon, it ain't no use," Luna sang way back in 1996, but clearly, they had never met Britton Watkins, a man who's made a career…
Elite: Dangerous updated powerplay in its big patch this week - Elite: Dangerous' 2.2.03 patch rolled out yesterday to players on both PC and Xbox One. While it's primarily a large balancing and tweak patch, there are some new recipes, a…
Project Gorgon preps Orcish homeland and level cap bump - Project Gorgon has an ambitious goal: to launch by the end of the year. To make this happen, the small dev team has to add a lot of higher-level content,…
Here’s how Crowfall is tweaking resource harvesting for Big World - Crowfall Design Lead Thomas "Blixtev" Blair has a new dev blog out this afternoon on the resource harvesting slice of the big world testing going on right now. To understand how…
Shards Online’s always-on alpha is now live - Citadel Studios' MMORPG Shards Online has formally launched its alpha today. "Alpha for a game like this means we’ve pretty much got all the major systems working cohesively, and that…
Richard Garriott publishes his memoirs - When you've lived a life as wacky and full as Ultima creator Richard Garriott, it only stands to reason that you'd probably want to share your stories and lessons with those who…
Chronicles of Elyria answers questions about biomes - The world of Chronicles of Elyria is full of biomes. That has a bigger impact than you might be thinking, as detailed in the game's latest video Q&A session. It's…
Ashes of Creation unloads 25-minute Q&A video - Now that the cat is out of the bag on the existence of Ashes of Creation, the team is charging forward in sharing its vision and design of the game…
Recapping Crowfall’s equity investment Q&A - Early this afternoon, ArtCraft Entertainment's J. Todd Coleman and Gordon Walton answered investor questions about Crowfall's equity crowdfunding venture, which closes out on Monday. We've collected some of the highlights. Coleman…
Pantheon recaps 2016, explores vertical grouping dungeon Amberfaet - "2016 was a formidable year for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen and its fans," Visionary Realms declares in its latest newsletter, which includes two chunks of interest for readers this…
Grim Dawn recaps 2016, plans first expansion by summer 2017 - Grim Dawn's latest "Grim Misadventures" featurette is a recap of its progress through 2016 in the leadup to its first birthday coming up in February. Crate put out seven content…
MMOs Chronicles of Elyria, Dual Universe, and AQ3D were among top crowdfunded games of 2016 - Fig, the gaming crowdfunding platform that surged in popularity in 2016 thanks to successful Wasteland 3 and Psychonauts 2 campaigns, has released a list of the top 10 biggest gaming crowdfunds…
Shroud of the Avatar previews the visuals of release 38 - If there were an award for most consistent game that is sorta launched but not totally launched, Shroud of the Avatar would totally win it. You can absolutely count on…
Star Citizen players capture the game’s beauty in new dev video - Thanks to the new camera controls that came in Alpha Update 2.6.0, Star Citizen players have been capturing all sorts of striking vistas from the upcoming space sim. The dev…
Shards Online hits alpha
Campaigns and crowdfunded MMOs we’re watching
3001SQ (Société des Mondes Virtuels) – Kickstarter unsuccessful. Work continues.
AdventureQuest 3D (Artix Entertainment) – Raised 368k; beta began Oct 2016.
Antraxx (Team Antraxx) – Kickstarter canceled.
Ascent: The Space Game (Fluffy Kitten Studios) – Successful KS. Fully launched 2016.
Camelot Unchained (City State) – Kickstarter successful; open donations/packages.
Caribbean Conquest (Invenio) – Kickstarter canceled (site offline).
Contested Space (Zon)
Crowfall (ArtCraft) – Kickstarter win, open packages, Indiegogo crowdfunding ongoing.
Chronicles of Elyria (Soulbound) – Kickstarter successful, open packages.
Citadel of Sorcery (MMO Magic, Inc.) –Â Open donations.
City of Titans (Missing Worlds Media) – Successful KS; launch planned for fall 2018.
Descent Underground (Descendent Studios) – Successful KS.
Divergence Online (Stained Glass Llama)Â –Â Three campaigns; now in KS early access.
Dogma: Eternal Night (Prelude Games Factory): Kickstarter over, donor preorder packs.
Dragon of Legends (Thrive Games) – Successful Kickstarter.
Dual Universe (Novaquark) – Kickstarter funded, now has donor platform.
Eco (Strange Loop Games) – Funded, now in alpha.
Edengrad (Huckleberry Games) – Kickstarter funded; now in pre-alpha.
Elite: Dangerous (Frontier Developments) – Funded and launched.
Empyrion Online (Eleon) – Kickstarter canceled; launched on Steam early access.
Epic Space (EpicSpace.net)
Ever, Jane (3 Turn Productions) – Now in open beta.
Gloria Victis (Black Eye Games) – Open donations, no end date; in early access.
Greed Monger (Greed Monger) – Abandoned, multiple times now.
Grim Dawn (Crate Entertainment) – Funded and launched.
Guns of Icarus (Muse) – Funded and launched.
Hero’s Song (Pixelmage) –Â KS canceled; Indiegogo. Canceled w/ refunds.
Infinity: Battlescape (I-Novae Studios)
HEX (HEX Entertainment) –Â Funded and launched.
Life is Feudal (Bitbox): Indiegogo ended.
LUX (Chimera) – Kickstarter canceled.
Midair (Archetype Studios) – Kickstarter successful.
Nebula Online (Mizar Games) Kickstarter canceled; launched in November.
Neo’s Land (NeoJac Entertainment) –Â Open donations, no end date.
Novus AEterno (Taitale Studios)
Overpower (Hydrant Games) –Â Kickstarter unfunded; heading to early access.
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen (Visionary Realms) –Â Open donations, no end date.
Pathfinder Online (GoblinWorks) – Doom, mostly.
Planet Nomads (Craneballs) – Successful Kickstarter.
Pixel Starships (SavySoda)
Project Gorgon (Elder Game) – Kickstarted in three tries + Indiegogo. In alpha.
Pumpkin Online (Monique) – Downgrading from MMORPG.
The Realm: Reawakened (Stephen Nichols) – Ongoing GoFundMe.
The Repopulation (Idea Fabrik) –Â Kickstarted twice by A&B. Relaunch Q1 2017.
ROKH (Darewise) – Kickstarter canceled; early access delayed to 2017.
The Stomping Land (Alex Fundora) – Abandoned.
Sacrament (Ferocity Unbound) – Kickstarter failed; Patreon ongoing.
Shadow’s Kiss (Clockwork Throne) – Ongoing Patreon.
Shards Online (Citadel Studios) – Kickstarted. Currently in alpha.
Shroud of the Avatar (Portalarium) – Successful KS. Soft launch July 2016.
Star Citizen (Cloud Imperium) – Ongoing donations/packages.
TUG (Nerd Kingdom) – In middle of year-long revamp after funding surge.
Vigor Roads (NeuronHaze) – Kickstarter unsuccessful; early access planned for 2017.
