Twin Drums and its fans have done it: The Wagadu Chronicles just fully funded on Kickstarter to the tune of €163,910 (around $191,400 US) thanks to 2,659 backers. Its original ask was $117K US, which it more than exceeded; the Kickstarter funding is meant to increase the development budget and rope in player “feedback and participation.”
As we’ve been covering this fall, the German developer has the backing of no less and Riot Games itself to build this unique Afrofantasy MMORPG, which boasts an emphasis on roleplaying, community, and authentic African-inspired lore and promises a wide range of skills and activities and crafts, as well as minimal grind, housing, farming, and player corpse loot mechanic on death.
Throughout the Kickstarter, players unlocked multiple stretch goals, including minigames, new sub-lineages, a navigation system, music, and mobile villages; the most recent unlock was the Asiman sub-lineages, elemental themes for the desert people in the game, along with a whole set of “competition arenas.”
“We can’t even begin to express how humbled and joyful we are about these last weeks,” the devs wrote tonight. “You have allowed us to make The Wagadu Chronicles even better that we thought it ever could be.”
This’ll be one we’re covering for a while, as it’s currently in a pre-alpha stage with a slated launch of Q4 2022.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it here again, I’m all for an Afrofantasy MMO, but a “player corpse loot mechanic on death” is a major NOPE from me. It’s the main reason I didn’t put any money down on the Kickstarter. Glad they got funded, because if this game does well, it might open the door for more games inspired by African mythology and legends (besides Egyptian stuff). But, as long as they have that mechanic, I won’t play it. My stuff is MY STUFF.
Glad to see they got funded, I’m happy for it. It looks like a beautiful game.
How do these MMO’s “fund” off $200k? It takes 10’s to 100’s of MILLIONS of dollars to build a decent MMO. I don’t get it.
They’re finacially backed by Riot. The Kickstarter was just some extra cash and (I assume) raising awareness and interest.
From what I understand they use the kickstarter just to get the word out for the game to get some players interested, and inform their existence(free ad plus gaining a bit start up fund). Its possible to make a game with less than 10 million but not an AA class anymore as everything became more expensive over time but still I am pretty sure the min is like 5m whereas in the long past games like STO had cost around that
Aaaaaaand just like that, you lost me.
…there was a couple of things there that red flagged the pigtails. >.<
I suspect the corpse looting thing may quietly disappear as they get further into development.
I could be wrong and we may just have to live with it, but it seems like it doesn’t mesh at all with any of their other goals, so I could see them not necessarily sticking to it when push comes to shove.
You’re not wrong but if anything about the game is designed around that mechanic, and they just remove it, they’ll have a problem to solve. One that is not as simply resolved as it seems.
I suspect it will too. They have explicitly said they will have a fleet of GMs to deal with people griefing, and I appreciate that, but I suspect they will still find it’s easier to ban the bad thing than have to constantly ban problem children. Maybe I’m wrong and the community that the game actually attracts will behave, if it stays small like a pserver or Neverwinter shard.
Yes, at least I hope it isnt a full loot and its a “soft” loot like Runescape or EVE. In Runescape you kept 3 best items if died and on EVE some modules get randomly destroyed in death. The biggest problem will be it can and will turn to a griefers mainly game with full loot open world pvp
I would rather have no corpse-loot whatsoever.
That is the optimal, yes, but the partial loot is at least a compromise to reduce potential griefing over item farming
Sure. But man, a RP game with griefable mechanics? Isn’t that a bit weird? Like, it sounds they have no point of reference about the MMO market right now? I hope they have good consultants.
Yeah, that’s pretty eff’d up. And ripe for opening the game up to grief, abuse and toxicity, when the proprietors are claiming to push for something entirely different from that. As the players will likely be looking to play Black Panther, and not Killmonger with this game instead.
A MMO centered around *RP. That’s got to be revolutionary! o.O
*Note: That’s “Roll Playing”, and not “Raid Progression”…just to be clear.
Still only a drop in the bucket.
Yay! I’m happy to have backed them.
I know Kickstarters are a risk. I am willing to take that risk to support this project.
A decent amount of backers to show interest.