@Shandyr I'm not worried about being taken seriously or not, as the opinions of such a broad range of people are bound to be different about what I am, say, think, or write. I try to mix a little humor in with my thoughts and always have. I may call the game (and the kickstart, or whatnot) as I see it and neither request, nor need, permission to do so. Anyway, it (the cake) was meant lightly as sort of a "after the kick start there will be cake" and not meant for much reading-into. It's part of my MO to use some silly humor along with my points; if it rubs you the wrong way, then I apologize. If you look at things I post, I sincerely believe you'll see that I don't sit here, on these forums, just waiting to climb out from under bridges to troll just to troll.
That said, kickstarter or no, the issue is essentially to pre-buy a non-proven commodity - that is what I have a problem with. I'm speaking for myself regarding my personal economic decisions; it's neither good bad nor other - it's my opinion and I stand by it. My overall point is that I'm not buying things before I really know what they are.
My issue is not with how the funds will be used as much as it's a matter of "we'll keep adding stuff if you add money". If I'm paying market prices for a game, I sort of want that game to be complete. It may be great; it may be otherwise. Anyway, the point was more driven from how it looks to me, which is 'how much can we squeeze out of this?' at this point. Or, put another way, "let's think of something else to add..." Not 'we meant to do and couldn't, but if we reach XX$ then we can'. It's more of 'oh, if you do this, we'll add (fill in blank), whether or not it fits, is needed, or was part of the vision.
That's how it looks to me. Right, wrong or indifferent, I call it like I see it. Don't assume I don't want it to be awesome or that I won't buy it at some point.
Those stretch goals just seem stupid. $200.000 for the player to have a house? I'm sorry, but this kind of shit is solved by two lousy side quests. Sure, in that case it wouldn't even begin to tap into the whole potential of a personal in-game house, but who is to say this concept doesn't get cut to just two small side quests alone the way? Because they have to make too many levels of those Endless Paths for example, which grow with the amount of supporters.
This kind of influence is just bad, the developers should decide what to do on their own, use their own ideas and not allow random factors like the amount of supporters to interfere.
It is also worth noting how much further this money will go as a development budget, as it won't need to be shared with retailers, distributors, producers, and license holders.
I agree that some stretch goals look like something that should be in there already. There's the wastelands2 stretch goal which is quite awesome though.
Do you guys know about the "old school rpg" by Brenda and Tom? It's not getting the same success and I think it's a bit their fault for the way they almost cheapened RPGs by saying 2 for 1, BUT in the end I am quite sure they would make a more than decent game if they got funded... not likely unfortunatly.
The name is: Shaker and seems to be a wizardry 8 based RPG.
"Old school RPG" gave zero details other than it's an old school RPG when I looked at it. There were plenty of old school RPGs I didn't like, and plenty I liked, without having any idea of what they're doing, it's kind of hard to pledge.
Project Eternity had a more defined idea from the start. Old school RPG felt like a "Hey, old RPG stuff is getting some money. Let's make a kickstarter too! We'll figure out the rest afterwards."
I know they've finally started to give out better details, so I might consider it now. But first person perspective makes me wonder what style they're looking for. And I'd want to know before paying.
*shrugs* I with the 2.7 stretch was swapped with 2.8, as the latter isn't likely to be reached. Anyway, we'll see what comes of this. I'll decide whether or not to support on the back-side of the project.
This will easily get 3 million due to the $20 expansion. If 50,000 backers pledge an additional $20 for the expansion, then that's an extra $1 million. There's no guarantee that 50K backers would do that though. It will be interesting to see how many people do add the extra $20 for the expansion.
Note: The extra money they get for the expansion goes to the main game making it larger. It's not for the funding of the expansion.
Am I the only person who doesn't get excited at the prospect of each level added to the mega dungeon? We recently got through Watchers Keep again and everything after the second level is "when is this going to be ooooover"
@Klonoa you're not alone. Although it might be more interesting than we give it credit for. And five levels of dungeon isn't as nerve-wracking as ten or twenty, so I'm less worried about it feeling cumbersome.
The expansion is tempting, but until I know what the expansion is going to be about, I'll probably save the money and stick to the tier I've chosen.
56,292 Backers $2,602,791 pledged of $1,100,000 goal 5 days to go
$2.6 mil achieved, Adventurer's Hall is a go. Paladins and Chanters are next goal at $2.7M. I'm frankly skeptical that they will get even extra 100k in 5 days but we'll see.
Am I the only person who doesn't get excited at the prospect of each level added to the mega dungeon? We recently got through Watchers Keep again and everything after the second level is "when is this going to be ooooover"
Depends on how it's constructed - could end up being similar to exploring a large city with lots of different stuff at different levels - different factions may control different areas - there's certain to be some merchants or maybe a mini-mall - lots of side quests - I'm for it...
On the other hand I have learned over the years that it's the journey you want to savor - not the destination so I am almost never going to look forward to when it's going to be over... ;-)
56,292 Backers $2,602,791 pledged of $1,100,000 goal 5 days to go
$2.6 mil achieved, Adventurer's Hall is a go. Paladins and Chanters are next goal at $2.7M. I'm frankly skeptical that they will get even extra 100k in 5 days but we'll see.
why?? they need only 80,000$ to the 2.7m goal, they have raised 20,000$ in the last 3 hours..
@Shandyr I don't see anything negative on DLCs if they are done right. So extra areas and classes as DLCs is completely acceptable to me, it's no different from an expansion to the game only that it´s downloadable.
Don't let some companies' bad practice make a DLC = bad thing association in your mind.
Now if they released a DLC with nothing but extra armor for your horse or an NPC that is vital to the main storyline THAT would surprise me.
So answering your question, no, they have done nothing to make me think they would release a non-relevant DLC and I certainly think that any of the unreached goals SHOULD be released later as DLC, as it's quite obvious they have plans for them and just need the funding.
@Shandyr by open, I mean that after the kickstarter is finished, they will still accept paypal payments until the game is released, so they could pick up extra funds anytime between now and the release of the game. Wastelands 2 kickstarter has ended, for example, but you can still pay and qualify for any of the tiers through paypal on their website.
what i gathered about the paypal donations are that by the end of the funding the money made trough it is just added on the kickstarter funding and thats the final result. I used paypal to support them btw.
Keeping donations open would seem to necessarily wreak havoc with the development cycle. I would think it would be very difficult to promise new features because they keep accepting funding and still deliver on time. If that happened, I'd expect the release date would be pushed because they promised to add feature A or B and didn't have time to complete it by release.
Comments
That said, kickstarter or no, the issue is essentially to pre-buy a non-proven commodity - that is what I have a problem with. I'm speaking for myself regarding my personal economic decisions; it's neither good bad nor other - it's my opinion and I stand by it. My overall point is that I'm not buying things before I really know what they are.
My issue is not with how the funds will be used as much as it's a matter of "we'll keep adding stuff if you add money". If I'm paying market prices for a game, I sort of want that game to be complete. It may be great; it may be otherwise. Anyway, the point was more driven from how it looks to me, which is 'how much can we squeeze out of this?' at this point. Or, put another way, "let's think of something else to add..." Not 'we meant to do and couldn't, but if we reach XX$ then we can'. It's more of 'oh, if you do this, we'll add (fill in blank), whether or not it fits, is needed, or was part of the vision.
That's how it looks to me. Right, wrong or indifferent, I call it like I see it. Don't assume I don't want it to be awesome or that I won't buy it at some point.
The project eternity engine is a stock 3d engine. BG3 in 3d is NWN.
This kind of influence is just bad, the developers should decide what to do on their own, use their own ideas and not allow random factors like the amount of supporters to interfere.
Do you guys know about the "old school rpg" by Brenda and Tom? It's not getting the same success and I think it's a bit their fault for the way they almost cheapened RPGs by saying 2 for 1, BUT in the end I am quite sure they would make a more than decent game if they got funded... not likely unfortunatly.
The name is: Shaker and seems to be a wizardry 8 based RPG.
Project Eternity had a more defined idea from the start. Old school RPG felt like a "Hey, old RPG stuff is getting some money. Let's make a kickstarter too! We'll figure out the rest afterwards."
I know they've finally started to give out better details, so I might consider it now. But first person perspective makes me wonder what style they're looking for. And I'd want to know before paying.
I might back it after all.
Note: The extra money they get for the expansion goes to the main game making it larger. It's not for the funding of the expansion.
The expansion is tempting, but until I know what the expansion is going to be about, I'll probably save the money and stick to the tier I've chosen.
Backers
$2,602,791
pledged of $1,100,000 goal
5
days to go
$2.6 mil achieved, Adventurer's Hall is a go. Paladins and Chanters are next goal at $2.7M. I'm frankly skeptical that they will get even extra 100k in 5 days but we'll see.
I'm still debating if I want to drop $20 for the expansion, considering I just backed Old School RPG as well...
On the other hand I have learned over the years that it's the journey you want to savor - not the destination so I am almost never going to look forward to when it's going to be over... ;-)
Don't let some companies' bad practice make a DLC = bad thing association in your mind.
Now if they released a DLC with nothing but extra armor for your horse or an NPC that is vital to the main storyline THAT would surprise me.
So answering your question, no, they have done nothing to make me think they would release a non-relevant DLC and I certainly think that any of the unreached goals SHOULD be released later as DLC, as it's quite obvious they have plans for them and just need the funding.