You'd be hard-pressed to find two names more storied than Richard Garriott and Brad McQuaid. McQuaid's EverQuest and Garriott's Ultima Online were genre-defining titles that are envied and emulated to this day.

More recently, they've both returned to their roots with new crowdfunded development efforts. Richard Garriott's Shroud of the Avatar funded on Kickstarter last year and recently released its first alpha build to backers. McQuaid's latest effort, Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, has its Kickstarter campaign currently underway, promising a return to old-school MMO gameplay with modern technology.

Now, these two industry pioneers are teaming up to allow for some creative cross-game crowdfunding opportunities – and maybe even some cross-over content! I had a chance to ask Brad McQuaid a few questions about this collaboration; questions that should make fans of both games, and online gaming in general, very excited!

If you've spent any time at all carousing in MMO circles, you’ve no doubt heard Brad McQuaid’s name mentioned at some point.

Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen launched its Kickstarter this afternoon. The Kickstarter campaign will run for 40 days and seeks to raise $800,000. A $45 minimum pledge will get you an alpha invite plus a digital copy of the game (which means including 30 days of game time, meaning it will likely be a subscription-based model), with an estimated ship date of January 2017. Stretch goals include additional classes, races, features and content. Here is the press release sent out by CCO Brad McQuaid's company, Visionary Realms.

Visionary Realms, Inc. announced today their plans to meet a growing demand in the Massively Multiplayer Online Games market by developing Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, a game targeted towards the challenge-seeking gamer. The game's design and ideas were inspired by feedback from many MMO communities that have been looking for a return to a classic style of MMO gameplay and group-focused game content.

"I receive emails almost every day asking for this type of game," said Visionary Realms' Chief Creative Officer, Brad McQuaid, who is best known for his critical and early involvement in the forming and influence of the MMORPG genre. "No one else seems to be answering this call. It's the kind of game we've been wanting to play for so long and we're finally getting a chance to make it, thanks to major advances in game development technology and crowdfunding."

Visionary Realms Inc. in launching its Kickstarter campaign, now turns to the public for funding. "We believe there are many, many people out there who have been wanting a game like Pantheon for so long and we're asking them for their help in making it happen," said Director of Development, Salim Grant. "It's the perfect opportunity for us to work with the fans and have everyone be a very real and important part of this exciting project."

Brad McQuaid has been hinting at having an MMO in the works since last year's layoffs at Sony Online Entertainment. With so many developers jobless in the area, he took the opportunity to bring together a team for a still unnamed company and work on his latest vision.

That faceless MMO finally has a name.

On Thursday, NeoJac Entertainment pulled the plug on the Kickstarter campaign for their new community content focused fantasy MMO, Neo's Land. With five days left in the month-long crowdfunding campaign, NeoJac had only raised CAD $15,813 of the CAD $100,000 they were looking for. The developers cited the unlikelihood of reaching their goal as one of the reasons for early termination, but focused primarily on how they had new ideas come up during the Kickstarter that they wished to implement.

I'm never happy when I see a project on Kickstarter that failed to meet its goal for any reason: I love the idea of crowdfunding and a community-driven MMO like Neo's Land seemed like a perfect fit for the platform. I was interested enough in the project that I interviewed the developers prior to the Kickstarter's launch and I followed its progress from start to this premature cancellation. The problem was that during those 26 or so days that I was following, I never pledged.

Normally if I follow a project as closely as I did this one, I'll throw them some money, whether out of interest in the finished product or because I'm a sucker for supporting independent developers. I just couldn't bring myself to pledge for this project and I started to wonder if other would-be backers had the same issues with this Kickstarter that I did. What exactly is it that turned away people from something that has a solid concept at the center?

Mega Man fans from all over should be rejoicing this week as the franchise-inspired remake, Mighty No.9, has reached the end of its Kickstarter campaign with a whopping $3.8 million in crowd funding–roughly four times as much as the original $900,000 goal.

Gamers love MMORPGs. And gamers love Minecraft. So what would happen if someone combined the two along with features from Monster Hunter, Eve Online, Animal Crossing and more? 

Storybricks is a game that defies being categorized. In the struggle to describe it, Namaste Entertainment's debut game has been compared to NeverWinter Nights, Minecraft, The Sims and a whole range of other popular titles. Yet none of these come close to creating an accurate picture of what Storybricks is or what Namaste hope to offer to us.

To help me in my quest to find the right words for this game, I sat down with Namaste's MMO architect Brian "Psychochild" Green and community manager Kelly Heckman. As we walked through the early alpha build of Storybricks, I discovered what drove the team to create this unusual title and why they've turned to KickStarter for help to develop it further.

A new age of video gaming is upon us. One that promises to deliver us games that we truly want to play. One that protects us from the generic mass-market approach favored by big publishers. One that encourages unique ideas and genre innovations instead of unmemorable dross. One that increases the power of the cash in our pocket, by allowing us to directly support the games we want to see created.

But is crowdfunding really the gaming panacea it's been labeled as? Are MMO gamers honestly being let down by large publishing houses? Is it actually possible to deliver an engaging massively multiplayer online experience on a shoestring budget?

More importantly, there's also an increased demand placed on the cash-strapped, time-poor MMO gamer. After paying for boxes, subscriptions, virtual currencies and more, can we really afford to splash out on every MMO idea? Will we ever get the time to play all these fledgling titles? As an increasing army of ideas plead for crowdfunding, are we going from Kick Started to Kick Saturated?