The past year has been an exciting one for Crowfall, with the developers announcing what will be one of the biggest updates to the game in its history. The Global Conquest update will be the biggest expansion, adding new content like dungeons, new gear, new weapons, and more. The update is still in development, but when it is released it will bring the game to the next level in terms of content, and bring it in line with many other MMOs.
Crowfall’s updates are continually changing the world of RvR. If you’re not already familiar with Crowfall, its a brand new MMO that offers a large sandbox world with hundreds of players, hundreds of guilds, and hundreds of thousands of potential quests. With all that to explore, it’s easy to see why its RvR is so popular, and this week we were lucky enough to talk to the developers about what’s coming next for the game.
Indie MMO Crowfall: The Art of Conquest is preparing for its second season, and just like last year’s, it’s bringing a major update that will shake the world it has built. These updates go by the name of “Global Conquest,” and they add a whole new layer of complexity to the game’s fabric. In this second season, players will be able to build new castles, build armies from the ground up, and even conquer their own regions from other players.. Read more about crowfall review 2021 and let us know what you think.
With Crowfall Update 7.100, also known as Global Conquest, we’re getting the newest and best Crowfall has to offer. Improved prizes, less downtime between bouts, and even an extended recruit-a-friend scheme are all expected to arrive hot out of the oven. The game’s giant servers, however, are the game’s main attraction this time around.
Fortunately for you (and me), I had the opportunity to meet down with ArtCraft co-founder and Executive Producer Gordon Walton last week to talk about the new features and dive a little further into what we can anticipate from the studio’s newest release. Read on to learn more about the patch, campaign distribution, competitions, latency, and what’s coming next.
MassivelyOP: According to the patch notes released on the Crowfall Test Server, the game will be receiving a number of improvements and upgrades. Can you tell me a bit about the new features in the 7.100 release, “Global Conquest”?
Gordon Walton of ArtCraft: The advantage that the new global cross-server Dregs and Shadow campaign maps give players is the promise of epic PvP battles and siege warfare every time they log in to play! The aim is to provide our users with thrilling, competitive PvP fights that are always available, regardless of where they are across the globe, anytime they check in. That way, we can keep our commitment to provide PvP your way, every day!
This update includes a slew of exciting new features in addition to the extended worldwide access. Alliance scoring is one of them. This increases the value of coalitions by providing additional reasons for them to join forces! In addition, we’ve increased the number of prizes available across all campaigns. We’ve also increased the number of Hot Zones. Hot Zones are locations that appear on the map on a regular basis and are advertised in-game through the events schedule tab. These Hot Zones allow players to participate in spontaneous fights with enemy NPCs who drop high-value loot (and a lot of it), as well as high-value experience rewards – if you can knock down these monsters before someone else does! Inside the campaign realms, the Hot Zones establish a “hotly” fought combat zone.
Finally, we’ve included a number of much-anticipated quality-of-life enhancements that will delight our gamers. Shorter death penalties (less downtime), quicker log-off in secure areas, and more comprehensive campaign awards are just a few of them. When you combine these elements, you get a lot of excellent gameplay and more exciting battles to get into everywhere you travel in the campaign areas. We’re excited to see what kind of fights develop after the upgrade goes live.
Mega servers seem to be a significant departure from what gamers have had access to so far. What are some of the features or enhancements to gameplay that we may anticipate from these new servers?
The mega servers, also known as global cross-server access, provide one very exciting benefit: it allows our community to fight in the campaigns of their choosing (Guild versus Guild combat in “The Dregs” or 3-Faction bouts in “The Shadow”) at any time. The advantage for players is that they may compete in a global PvP competition where there are always goals to achieve, territory to conquer, Strongholds to capture, or adversaries to defeat, and all of these actions can influence the campaign’s conclusion. Finally, players have more options in terms of what they can do to win, and that is what Crowfall is all about: providing players meaningful choices. The results of these fights and campaigns are all decided by player decisions. Attack a city, seize a convoy, and take control of all resource and supply movement along the major trade routes; join forces with a bigger army, or offer your services as mercenaries for hire. Crowfall gives players influence over how the narrative develops, which makes the game fresh every time you log in.
Now, from the viewpoint of a player, my testing on the Test Server revealed that people would join to a campaign with much more zones than the ones we’ve seen so far. Should we consider them massive campaigns rather than mega servers?
Regarding the distinction between mega campaigns and mega servers, I believe you are correct; the word “mega campaigns” better reflects the vast zones to which players now have access. These campaigns are now bigger than any we’ve done before, thanks to the “Worldwide Conquest” concept, which allows people to participate in a single global campaign. We wanted to encourage a higher level of competitiveness while still making it simple for users to join in whenever they wanted and get straight into a fight. This method provides a more flexible degree of access.
There is a place for you to compete in Crowfall, whether you play in a faction, wish to create a group or join an existing guild, or if you are currently in an existing guild (on your schedule). Crow Recruits (our buddy program) began in August and has proven to be a huge success. Anyone who has bought Crowfall may invite their friends to play for a free 10-day trial. Crowfall is undeniably about group PvP – it’s much more fun with buddies! Along with the new update, we’re extending the Crow Recruits program through September 30 and adding incentives for friends whose friends convert to buying Crowfall (while the friends receive a 25% discount thanks to the Buddy code!).
This is what we imagined when we first imagined what Crowfall’s unique value proposition would be: groups of players coming together in team-based PvP battles, large and small, organized or surprise attacks, with complete empowerment; and we hoped that this would be a game that would bring people together. We created the game to encourage social interaction and good old-fashioned PvP competition. We’ll keep working hard to develop products and services that enhance that fundamental value even more.
What was the motivating reason for the Dregs and Shadow campaigns being changed?
PvP your way, every day, ensuring that we live true to our brand value promise. That means there’s fantastic, competitive, team-based PvP exploding somewhere in the globe every time you check in. Crowfall’s “Global Conquest” upgrade provides that experience, and that is what distinguishes it from other games. There are fantastic PvP fights for you to participate whenever you check in, whether it is 10 a.m. on the East Coast of North America or 10 a.m. in Germany. This is the spirit of large PvP sieges, and it is what makes open-world PvP gaming so enjoyable.
Should players anticipate this to be the main campaign type in the future, or is this simply another example of Crowfall’s ability to build various campaigns with varied rulesets at any time?
I think we’ll stay with these big global campaigns for a few months, but the ability to run many campaigns with unique rulesets and victory conditions is a crucial feature of Crowfall. We’re working on a few things that will make future campaigns more diverse in terms of rulesets. This is about both of those principles; at first, we’ll be providing bigger, more accessible campaigns. Then, as time goes on, you’ll see us begin to experiment with other kinds of distinct campaigns, as we think we can have a lot of fun with that unique aspect of the game – we can’t wait to start playing with wacky campaign rules and prizes to make this even more exciting for players.
I discovered that there were many disputed regions throughout several of the zones at any one moment. It was really very great since it would allow me to better plan my gaming time because I wouldn’t be limited to just a few siege periods. What effect do you think this will have on the coordination and player population in these zones?
One of the driving reasons behind this worldwide campaign feature was to guarantee that our players would have access to even more meaningful competition at any time they were ready to play. If you select The Dregs, Guild vs. Guild combat, or factional clashes in The Shadow worlds, having a global campaign gives you more opportunities to engage in Keep and Fort sieges everytime you check in. We want to provide you additional chances to compete in Crowfall, no matter what your playstyle is.
Do you think this will snowball the win conditions towards the bigger guilds in the Dregs campaigns, or will it provide smaller guilds a better chance to claim territory? What about the Divine Favor system? Do you think it will change how players acquire these points?
Victory Cards, which make up the rewards in Crowfall’s Divine Favor system (rewards for completing requests from the Gods), were added to give players who enjoy different types of gameplay a chance to win at the type of gameplay they prefer, whether it’s siege, conquest, combat, harvesting, or crafting. This is why, in addition to the Conquest category, we have Victory Cards that allow you to win prizes across a range of tasks by using Glory, Wealth, and Power cards. Each of the three cards focuses on a different kind of gameplay and incentivizes players to compete for campaign prizes. Cards focused on harvesting, for example, reward the usage of specific harvesting equipment and abilities that are advantageous to teams and essential to winning a campaign battle. Crowfall provides value to a range of player types, not only fighters, thanks to this kind of reward system, which promotes the importance of various talents within a team. This strategy guarantees that there are activities inside campaigns that are well-suited to specialist talents and tiny guilds. Outside of capturing territory and Conquest Points, there are a few victory criteria in every campaign that may qualify a team to win.
Our first goal is to ensure that smaller guilds have more chances to participate in and invest in campaigns. We understand that in a PvP game like this, a substantial portion of the players may choose a small or medium-sized guild or group, and we want to promote such choices as valuable and legitimate alternatives to big guilds and groups.
Returning to the zones inside a campaign, are these zones all on separate servers, or is there some kind of backend mechanism that forces you to zone into a disputed one? Is there a method to tell whether you’re on an American, European, Australian, or other server?
The map and event schedule information constantly tells players of the best locations to travel right now in the campaign to participate in competitive activity. Players have complete freedom to travel between worlds. We make sure that players are aware of the location of each server in relation to the area in which it is located, as well as what is occurring in terms of campaigns and fights on that server now and in the future.
In terms of latency and game performance, I’m aware that the ArtCraft team has been working hard to improve the game’s overall performance. When a player from the United States connects to an Australian or European server, however, there is usually some latency or rubber-banding. Have you had any problems with the mega server system because of this?
So far, we haven’t encountered any significant latency or performance issues. We can’t repair the internet, but we do all we can to provide our gamers the greatest experience possible. The overwhelming majority of players will have no trouble connecting to either the US or EU servers, but Australia is a bit of a wildcard owing to both geography and how it is linked to the rest of the internet globe. We’ve done our best to maximize access by being aware of the difficulties and providing the greatest possible experience within the limitations.
More broadly, we’ve already had both a Dregs campaign and the new Shadow campaigns to fight over since release; are there any more variants planned outside of the mega servers? Is there any chance you’ll hold more Hunger Dome tournaments?
In the next months, we’d want to bring Hunger Dome back. We’ve had a lot of varied suggestions from players about what they’d want to see in the game. For those unfamiliar with Crowfall’s Hunger Dome, it is an arena map where twelve teams of five players fight in a battle that lasts around 30 minutes; the winner is the last team/member remaining before the Hunger consumes the planet in this struggle for global dominance.
The Hunger Dome was available for testing earlier this year, but it is no longer available in the game. One of the greatest suggestions we’ve received from players is to turn Hunger Dome into an arena that could be put in an Eternal Kingdom (Eternal Kingdoms are personal and guild player homes in Crowfall) and used for arena-style contests. That is something we would want to accomplish, and we aim to have it accessible in the coming months.
Right now, we’re focusing on the excitement of highly competitive large siege warfare and campaign fights that are constantly accessible, giving players a varied range of choices for engaging in exciting PvP encounters whenever they check in. We’ll shift our focus to additional possibilities like Hunger Dome after we’ve finished the present improvements and maximized the enjoyment of these fights. That fits right in with our PvP your way, every day value offering.
Crowfall has been steadily improving since I began paying attention to it, with new updates and features arriving on a regular basis. What can players expect in the next update now that Global Conquest (update 7.100) is out the door? Is there anything more that was supposed to be included in this update but wasn’t?
We’re working on a number of exciting new features. We’ve been sharing design papers with our community and seeking input on most of those features as they’ve been discovered, and we’ve drafted a first design (many are already getting reviewed by players). During the creation of the features for Global Conquest (7.100), we performed a lot of design work, a lot of which is in the collection of designs now being reviewed on our forums. Those features are high on the priority list, and they will be implemented over the following several milestones. All of the key features were derived from player input and represent the priorities that our users assigned to us. Handshake sieges, chat and map interface changes, as well as revisions to the campaign scoring system and other quality-of-life enhancements, are all included. We’ll also keep working on client and server speed, which is always a priority in large-scale PvP games. Our aim is to keep making PvP in Crowfall more enjoyable.
We’re ecstatic with the positive feedback we’ve received, and we’ll keep delivering on the features that make Crowfall so competitive and enjoyable to play. That is, after all, what it is all about!
Gordon Walton, thank you so much for taking the time to address all of our questions! Players won’t have to wait long for the fix, which is due today morning around 10 a.m. EDT. The game’s official website and social media pages provide more information. In the meanwhile, check out our Crowfall coverage from before and after this summer’s major debut in our Fight or Kite column:
Every other week, Sam Kash of Massively OP brings you Fight or Kite, a look at the condition of PvP in the MMORPG industry. Sam thrives on the adrenaline thrill of a good fight, whether he’s waiting in line or rolling with the zerg. Because, at the end of the day, the entire point of PvP (apart from pwning noobs) is to have fun battling a fresh and unexpected opponent!
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