Founders' Update: Persistent World Testing

[Pann 8,531]

Note: Our website is still undergoing some major work, so we're publishing this update here on the forum again. We hope to return soon to our usual method for delivering news. - Pann

 

Hey, gang!

 

Two great announcements for you today!

First, we just crossed the line of $3 million in crowdfunding! Add that to our investment funds and licensing money and it puts us right at $10 million in project funding. Both of these are huge financial milestones for us, and we will be forever grateful for your continued faith in our team and in Crowfall®.

 

Second, we have successfully started our first persistent world test!  This means:

 

-       Expect the servers to be up for days at a time (instead of hours!)

-       Size of the world map has increased dramatically

-       You can log in and out of the game, and then pick up from where you left off from the last test session

-       Skill training (and equipment) are persistent between game sessions and test windows

-       You will continue to advance your skills even when the game world is offline

-       Skill training can be changed from the lobby any time – even when the game world is offline!

 

This is a huge step forward for Crowfall. Our first test run, last Friday/Saturday, went off without a hitch. This test had relatively low concurrency (with only 250 people invited) but the server stayed up for 27 hours without interruption until we decided to take it offline.

 

Our second test, which started last night at 5pm CST, brought the total number of invites up to 800. We did a game update this morning, and sent out another round of invites – bringing the number of invited players up to 1600. The test group now includes ALL backers with the Pre-Alpha1, Pre-Alpha 2 and Alpha 1 reward (in other words: Sapphire pledge packages and above). 

 

We’re going to extend the time window on THIS test by 12 hours because we also made a significant change to combat movement (with the Myrmidon) this morning, and we want to collect additional feedback. The current test will now continue until 11pm CST tonight (11/02/2016).

 

Next Test Window

 

Our next test will run for 50+ hours.  It is scheduled to start on Friday night, 11/4, at 5pm CST and to end on Sunday night, 11/6,11pm CST. 

 

Our current plan is to invite the Alpha 2 Kickstarter test group first (~3,000 people invited), and – subject to server performance – we will look at adding the rest of the Alpha 2 test group folks during this same test window. 

 

Everyone in the Alpha 2 and 3 test groups should be in by the next weekend, 11/11 (unless we have some kind of development setback). Problems in development are to be expected, so don’t be too distressed if that happens. Every problem we find and fix now is great for the future stability and scalability of Crowfall!  Remember: we want to invite people as quickly as we can, but that is limited by the performance and stability of every test version.

 

We’ll continue doing mid-week tests, followed by weekend tests through most of November. Your skill training and inventory will persist between tests**.

 

Exciting times! As always, we appreciate your help as we create and iterate on Crowfall, and we can’t wait to see you in game!

 

J. Todd Coleman and Gordon Walton
Co-Founders, ArtCraft Entertainment

 

 

** unless we have a development need to wipe the database, which will happen from time-to-time. We are still in pre-alpha, after all!

 

[coolster50 2,224]

Friday night will NEVER come soon enough!

[Zolaz 796]

[Thyr 522]

Well scaling things up (purposely breaking things/stressing things) isn't so bad so nice to see. Wonder how the Big World will feel when we hit a certain threshold performance wise and gameplay wise (bloodbath continued)

[OnyxOctopus 140]

I've been waiting so long for this </3

[Eaden 719]

[Garion132 2]

this is going to be great

[FenrisDDevil 3,474]

10m$? Weren't you at 7 and something, including the 2.5m$ you had in crowdfunding? Math doesn't add

[youma 423]

[Tyrant 6,377]

10m$? Weren't you at 7 and something, including the 2.5m$ you had in crowdfunding? Math doesn't add

 

We hadn't gotten around to adding $2m in licensing and we raised another $500k in capital last month.  it will be up on the site tomorrow.

[Tark 961]

Fenris is on to something. I keep hearing that Tyrants emails are missing. Thats not what I'm saying but thats what I'm hearing. 

[krevra 832]

Oh yeeaaaaaah, Alpha 2 lets go!

[Zolaz 796]

We hadn't gotten around to adding $2m in licensing and we raised another $500k in capital last month.  it will be up on the site tomorrow.

 

ACE lost it in the couch cushions.

[betaguy 38]

Thanks for the update, great work!

[Sioncent 194]

Great to see ACE hit this milestone - excellent progress!!

[snowmizer 340]

 

          KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK GUYS!!!!

Edited November 3, 2016 by snowmizer

[Kalus_Konkwest 114]

CASH HYPE YA'LL!

[miraluna 2,492]

Congrats on the $3 million in crowdfunding ACE!  

 

Making an MMO for $10 million = good times had by all 

[Greenfox21 289]

We hadn't gotten around to adding $2m in licensing and we raised another $500k in capital last month.  it will be up on the site tomorrow.

Good Stuff.

 

 

I know that there's lots of wages to pay and other stuff.

Having an bigger puffer is always better.

Makes you not " we needed to realese" later on ... as likely.

 

xD

 

Keep up the good work~

Your the only hope in the mmorpg sector, now that Everquest Next is an dryed Mummy.

[Sadrax 71]

I'm extremly happy for you guys and to be honest very much hyped for the game
I shall wait in beta 1 untill i get an invite ^^ In the meantime Praise the sun! \[T]/