Camelot Unchained Interview
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RPS: Why Camelot? What will Dark Age fans find here?
Jacobs: Why Camelot? Because I am a huge fan of the legends. I grew up on them. I got to see Richard Burton on Broadway in the play. I've always been a huge fan. Same with the other mythologies if you are interested in Norse, well, we're going full-on Viking. But it's also about RvR. A pure RvR game. No other fantasy MMO is trying that. And I know for a lot of Dark Age fans that's not what they want to hear! In the beginning the vast majority of people played RvR, but those numbers dwindled. Most people were levelling via PvE. People who really want RvR, however, and want an interesting housing system build them, and then burn them down! people who want something different, that is who we are pitching it. A game is different but still has a connect to that same lore. This is it. We're doing interesting things with both lore and MMO game mechanics.
RPS: You've countered some of the ready-made criticisms of a successful developer using Kickstarter by offering up a big chunk of your own money, haven't you? Was that how it had to work to avoid the finger-pointing that has been going on regarding these sorts of pitches?
Jacobs: I don't know if it had to work that way. If you have a guy like Richard Garriott, a guy who could afford to put himself into space and back again, not putting any money in, or at least only prefunding some development, well, it doesn't have to work like that. It's not necessary. But I wanted to do this for our backers. Like I said, MMOs are scary, and I am the guy who is blamed, rightly or wrongly, for anything that went wrong with Warhammer and Dark Age. I wanted to put my money in and say (I am right in here with you.) I am not a billionaire! I don't come close! But I wanted to do this. And that's the other reason to do this, and go the Kickstarter route: to gauge interest, to see who else is interested in supporting this kind of concept. People are suffering from MMO fatigue, and for all I knew, had I gone and developed this myself, I might have found nobody playing it. This way we go to Kickstarter, and people who are interested get their chance, and we know we have an audience. That's important.
