Veteran MMO designer Greg 'Ghostcrawler' Street, formerly of Blizzard and Riot, wants to show his new game soon, but he also wants the world to know it's not going to look very good at first.
"As promised, we're going to share more about our game, codenamed Ghost, and I need y'all to not freak out about what a game in prototype looks like," Street says on Twitter. "We are trying to strike the right balance between saying 'we are early,' without sending the message 'sorry it's going to be 10 years.'"
Street adds, "We know we will see 'looks like ass' replies and we're fine with that. It turns out making final production art while you are still rapidly iterating is not efficient. As always, if you want to tune out until the game is in final production, totally cool with us."
We know we will see "looks like ass" replies and we're fine with that. It turns out making final production art while you are still rapidly iterating is not efficientAs always, if you want to tune out until the game is in final production, totally cool with usApril 2, 2024
Ghost - which is, again, just a codename - was first announced in November 2023, promising a AAA MMO set in a "new fantasy universe" from a team of veteran developers. The game is quite early in development, and the devs have been quite open about sharing ideas early - including their desire to make the game "fit into your lives" while promising that there will still be some "difficulty spikes" for that old-school RPG experience.
"We don't need public funding but we do need feedback on what players like or don’t like," Street says elsewhere on Twitter. "It's too early for much of that to be helpful yet, but we do need to show the game to start that process."
In another tweet, Street notes that "one of the big challenges for MMOs is you release, and players love it for two weeks, and then the problems show. We want to know what those are before we launch. (It's often endgame.)"
Ghost has one heck of a pedigree, but it remains to be seen if its final shape can stand up to the best MMORPGs out there. Here's hoping it can manage to impress even when it's still in a form that looks, er, "like ass."
Elsewhere in the modern MMO landscape, Final Fantasy 14's Yoshi-P regrets making the game as stress-free as it is.
