Make My MMO: Star Citizen would make for a terrible scam (September 16, 2017)

This week in MMO crowdfunding, Star Citizen’s Chris Roberts gave an interview that seemed to express understandable frustration with the constant barrage of demands for alpha launch estimates, scam accusations, and “fan trolling” he encounters.

“I am fed up of giving someone an estimate – I’d rather say, here’s the data I have, here’s the schedule I see,” he told Eurogamer, arguing that CIG is already providing progress reports for the massive crowdfunded MMO. “There’s a subset of people who say ‘this thing is never going to come out, it’s a scam’. Which is plainly not true. It would be the worst scam in the world. We’re hiring all these people, we’re working really hard. We’re showing what we’re doing every week.”

Meanwhile, we wrapped up our tour of Shroud of the Avatar, Elite Dangerous announced its September 26th update, we chatted with Ashes of Creation at PAX, Kickstarter began welcoming Japanese creators, Albion Online kicked off playtests for its arena mode, AdventureQuest 3D is going all out for Talk Like A Pirate Day, and Dogma: Eternal Night continued hammering out its combat system (thanks, DDOCentral!).

Read on for more on what’s up with MMO crowdfunding over the last week and the regular roundup of all the crowdfunded MMOs we’re following.

Elite Dangerous

Recent MMO crowdfunding news

Camelot Unchained ‘sprints’ toward beta one sieges, teases group and guild infodump - This week's Camelot Unchained is good news, assuming you want to play the game, and you probably do, else you'd not be reading this. "We are now embarking on a…

Shroud of the Avatar reveals a batch of investment rewards for the one percenters - People, steel yourself for an entire article about gold-themed housing decorations that won't involve a single Trump joke. It's going to be hard, but we can get through it. Together.…

Star Citizen’s alpha 3.0 inches closer to testers, CIG touts its mission system - In this week's episode of Star Citizen's Around the Verse, Cloud Imperium says it's reduced its must-fix issues by 50 over the last week, bringing us that much closer to…

PAX West 2017: Chronicles of Elyria’s monetization philosophy, tribe evolution, and the PvP sandbox stigma - What is Chronicles of Elyria? We first learned about the game and its goal to redefine the MMORPG genre back in 2015. Since then, CoE has been developing steadily, especially…

Elite: Dangerous brings the Thargoids with patch 2.4 on September 26 - There are dangerous things in deep space when you play Elite: Dangerous. More dangerous than system failures, or pirates, or interstellar phenomena. The Thargoids are arriving on September 26th, the…

Wild West Online’s first closed alpha has officially begun - "Open-world action-based, online multiplayer" game - somewhere between a survival sandbox and an MMO - Wild West Online officially hits closed alpha today, or at least its first phase for…

Star Citizen denies claims that a backer sought and received a $45000 refund - [Update: ArsTechnica now reports that a Cloud Imperium rep has gone on the record stating that some of the Redditor's claims are fabrication, including the amount (CIG maintains it was…

Here are all of Crowfall’s launch class/race combos - Now that Crowfall has split with the whole fixed-archetype thing, it's a world of possibilities over at this PvP title. And while there will be plenty of possible class and…

Albion Online ushers Joseph into the game on September 27th - We do not know if Albion Online's Joseph update will include a technicolor dreamcoat, or indeed, a dreamcoat of any sort. We do know that it'll arrive in the game…

Choose My Adventure: Shroud of the Avatar in summation - All the time through playing Shroud of the Avatar, I found myself wanting to like the game a lot more than I did. And my brain kept turning back to…

Project Gorgon is ‘gearing up’ for a Steam launch, adds item context menus - When the history books go to record the development of Project Gorgon, they're going to have to use terms like "ages" and "epochs" to describe the slow-burning process of this…

Crowfall adds armor racks and a dangerous beachhead - September looks to be busy for the Crowfall team, as it continues to expand the campaign world and its related testing process. This week, it triggered a small patch that…

Pantheon’s newsletter covers custom lighting, the perception system, and the state of the game - Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen's latest newsletter heralds a state-of-the-game missive spread out over four pages of content. Visionary Realms notes that its Series A funding round allowed it to…

Crowfall reveals the secrets of its crowdfunding success - With $2.7 million raised from fans and $12.5 million total in its pockets from multiple sources, ArtCraft has a wealth of money on which to build Crowfall. The studio also…

Shroud of the Avatar’s R46, free trial, community map, and $52K telethon haul - Shroud of the Avatar is full-speed ahead, looking on to R46 with R45 in the rear-view mirror. What's in R46? Lots of stuff, starting with "building the mid-level and lower…

Star Citizen’s Chris Roberts is ‘fed up’ with giving 3.0 release estimates - Eurogamer's Chris Roberts interview covers why the alpha 3.0 is more like early access than beta, how making games has changed in the era of crowdfunding, and why he's tired…

Valiance Online puts out a call for hurricane heroes for charity event - When real-life tragedy occurs, it's perfectly OK to give priority to assistance over interest in video games. But what if you could do both? Valiance Online has joined the growing…

PAX West 2017: Ashes of Creation’s combat, crowdfunding, characters, and the infamous hat - You don't have to be a massive MMO studio to have a big showing at PAX West - Intrepid Studios proved that. The indie studio developing Ashes of Creation had a…

Shroud of the Avatar

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.
Albion Online (Sandbox) – Launched July 2017.
Antraxx (Team Antraxx) – Kickstarter canceled.
Ascent: The Space Game (Fluffy Kitten Studios) – Successful KS. Fully launched 2016.
Ashes of Creation (Intrepid Studios) – Successful KS.
Broke Protocol (Cylinder) – Unsuccessful KS. In free early access.
Camelot Unchained (City State) – Kickstarter successful; open donations/packages.
Caribbean Conquest (Invenio) – First KS canceled, second ended unsuccessfully.
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.) – 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) – 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. Alpha delayed.
Eco (Strange Loop Games) – Funded, now in alpha.
Edengrad (Huckleberry Games) – Kickstarter funded; in early access.
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.
Global Adventures (SubaGames) – Kickstarter funded.
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) – KS canceled; Indiegogo. Canceled w/ refunds.
Infinity: Battlescape (I-Novae Studios)
HEX (HEX Entertainment) – Funded and launched.
Legends of Aria (Citadel Studios) – Kickstarted as Shards Online. Currently in alpha.
Life is Feudal (Bitbox): Indiegogo ended. Currently in beta.
LUX (Chimera) – Kickstarter canceled.
Maestros of the Anthymn (String Theory) – Kickstarter canceled.
Mekria (Infinity Online Studios) – Kickstarter canceled.
Midair (Archetype Studios) – Kickstarter successful.
Nebula Online (Mizar Games) Kickstarter canceled; launched in November.
Neo’s Land (NeoJac Entertainment) – Open donations, no end date.
Novus AEterno (Taitale Studios)
OrbusVR (Ad Alternum) – KS funded March 2017.
Overpower (Hydrant Games) – Kickstarter unfunded; heading to early access.
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen (Visionary Realms) – Open donations, no end date.
Pathfinder Online (GoblinWorks) – Doom, mostly.
Planet Nomads (Craneballs) – Kickstarted, early access launched sans multiplayer.
Pixel Starships (SavySoda)
Project Gorgon (Elder Game) – Kickstarted in three tries + Indiegogo. In alpha.
Pumpkin Online (Monique) – Downgrading from MMORPG.
The Exiled (Fairytale Distillery) – fka Das Tal; 2015 KS unsuccesful. In Steam early access.
The Realm: Reawakened (Stephen Nichols) – Ongoing GoFundMe.
The Repopulation (Idea Fabrik) – Kickstarted twice by A&B. Back in alpha
ROKH (Darewise) – Kickstarter canceled; now in early access.
RUiN (Tarhead Studio) – Kickstarter successful.
The Stomping Land (Alex Fundora) – Abandoned.
Sacrament (Ferocity Unbound) – Kickstarter failed; Patreon ongoing.
Shadow’s Kiss (Clockwork Throne) – Ongoing Patreon.
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.

Wild West Online