Kickstarter Gaming - for $10.000,00 you get a "don't steal my money" emoji

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Kickstarter Gaming - for $10.000,00 you get a "don't steal my money" emoji

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champagne posting: Apr 5, 2006; YOU ARE A BRAIN
IN A BUNKER

Juc66 posted:

Only asking 55k?
Is that even going to be anywhere near enough?

Nope. MMOs costs hundreds of millions of dollars.

# ? Oct 8, 2012 21:15

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# ? May 10, 2024 08:00

Dr. Video Games 0031: Jul 17, 2004

I just don't know if I can ever support an indie MMO. It's the one genre indies can't really touch, and do it well. You need such a big budget to make an even acceptable MMO. Otherwise you just end up with trash like Wurm. Games with good ideas that just aren't fun to play.

# ? Oct 8, 2012 21:17

Scorchy: Jul 15, 2006; Smug Statement: Elementary, my dear meatbag.

I'd Kickstart a really good MUD!

# ? Oct 8, 2012 21:19

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

I've been reading your blog for a while now and it's a good one, but I am just not interested in an MMO at this point, indie or otherwise. Sorry.

# ? Oct 8, 2012 21:26

Sigma-X: Jun 17, 2005

srand posted:

*cough* Hi. *clears throat*

So! Eric Heimburg and I have been kicking around the MMO industry for quite awhile now, from Asheron's Call 1 & 2 to EQ2 and (an early version of) STO. For the past three years, we've been working on our own game, an indie MMO called Project: Gorgon. We're currently using Kickstarter to try to raise money for halfway decent character models so we can launch in a year and a bit. Random internet people (TM) suggested pimping our project here.

Project: Gorgon - An Indie MMO by Industry Veterans

So what's different about this game? Why should you support Project: Gorgon? I'm going to quote Eric since he already wrote this bit and I am, like most coders, fundamentally lazy. (We call it efficient.)

Aimed at explorers, not just achievers: we have a ton of game systems interlocked in interesting ways. We aren't holding your hand to discover everything, either. This is a world that explorers of all types will really enjoy. (Achievers are also welcome, but there are already plenty of great games for people to grind to max level ASAP.)

Free-form: the game doesn't have predefined classes; pick any two combat skills at once and make your own class, and tune/change it as you discover new abilities and skills.

Deep combat: combat is oriented toward many-vs-many group fights: your three-man group will often be tackling four or five dangerous enemies, and there are no overly-convenient roles like "tank" and "healer". Different enemies will require different combat strategies; figure them out, adapt, think on your feet!

Focus on emergent gameplay: we think "emergent problems" are some of the most fun things that can happen in an MMO, and our game rules are optimized around making that happen. Sometimes this means we aren't as optimal in terms of the kill-loot-sell loop that most MMOs are now focused on, but the trade-off is worth it. As a simple example, in order to use some vendors, you have to befriend them and convince them to give you a good trade rate. This sucks if you're just trying to sell stuff and get back to killing, but it's worth it because it opens up new ways and new reasons to play. Combine a lot of little ideas like this and they combine to form emergent scenarios. (But of course we're always cognizant of causing pain -- we avoid annoyance whenever possible.)

Friendly: We're a PvE game, and there's no PvP to speak of (besides trivial stuff like dueling). But if you've played PvE MMOs like WoW recently, "carebear" isn't very friendly anymore. In fact, it's downright hostile, unfun, and tedious. There are a lot of reasons this is happening, from the communities' attitudes to specific gameplay mechanics. We're aiming for a very friendly community, and tailoring the game to make that happen. (Regarding PvP: we would love to "do PvP right", but we aren't interested in doing a crap PvP implementation just to check a feature off a list. Some day we'll do PvP right in an MMO. But this time around, we're trying to do PvE right.)

Not afraid to try new approaches: We removed auction houses. Why? Because it hurts crafters, didn't have sufficient up-sides, and it didn't fit into our game very well. (http://www.eldergame.com/2012/09/the-case-against-auction-houses/) We've replaced it with some new game mechanics. These new ideas may or may not work, and if they don't, we'll just have to change them until they do. The point is that we are willing to take risks and try new game systems, rather than just parroting what's in every other MMO just to avoid failure. We've been working on MMOs for years now (most recently as behind-the-scenes design contractors), and we've seen why most MMOs feel so similar: they're afraid to try things that might not work immediately. It's very frustrating, both for players and for developers.

There's more but this is long enough already. The Project: Gorgon Kickstarter page has more details and our blog - ElderGame.com - has even more.

Thanks for reading! I hope you find it interesting enough to pledge.

- Sandra Powers

Thank you for registering to shill your indie MMO.

I'm very curious as to how you're handling the networking backend, specifically developing and testing and managing multiplayer, security, account management etc on an indie budget. That seems like the biggest barrier to entry for an indie, especially one that is financing art and sound and server infrastructure on $55k.

I understand that you have experience as engineers, but both of your backgrounds are more in-line with leadership roles with both of you holding lead engineer positions, but on what sounds like games with their whole architecture in-place like AC1 (Moving from AC2->AC1 indicates post-launch support, as does your transition to Producer, specifically Live Producer), or doing more system-design oriented work as opposed to networking.

I'm not going to say that other programming disciplines are "easy," but networking and security are very hard, and require specialization that doesn't easily cross-polinate with gameplay, AI, systems design or rendering or whatever. While I have no doubt that your backgrounds make you very capable of making a single player game with the aid of Unity, Unity doesn't handle MMO multiplayer out of the box and that seems like an area of weakness.

So do you have the prerequisite networking experience to actually develop an MMO with a proper account management system that prevents people from losing their accounts, preserves the game's "sanctity" by avoiding hacks or at least managing the game database such that it is easy to edit and/or roll back to fix things when the inevitable security breach does happen?

These are huge issues that seem like they'd take more than $55k to solve on their own, nevermind the other potential risks for any game project.

# ? Oct 8, 2012 21:41

chiefnewo: May 21, 2007

Drifter posted:

But yes, I find myself hoping this particular kickstarter fails if only to serve as a gatekeeper to how the developers should be viewing and interacting with the kickstarter gaming public. They owe it to themselves, for respectability's sake, and to the general contributing public especially if they are going to be requesting money for a business proposition.

The thing that got me about their Kickstarter pitch is that it is called "Oldschool RPG." That's not even pretending to appeal to something other than nostalgia. Oldschool RPG isn't a name of a game or even a decent project name like Obsidian's Project Eternity, it's just "You liked those old RPGs, right? Well there's the pledge button, no don't worry about the rest of this pitch."

# ? Oct 8, 2012 21:43

Shalinor: Jun 10, 2002; _{Can I buy you a rootbeer?}

Scorchy posted:

I'd Kickstart a really good MUD!

I don't think I'd kickstart a true MUD, but if someone were to do a MUD in the style of Grimrock? Man... that, that I might have to play.

(for reference: this is Legend of Grimrock - you know, that 3D tile-based dungeon crawler thing)

I too am pretty much over MMOs. It's bad enough that even faux MMOs like Diablo 3 are getting a pass from me these days. Consoles aside, I mostly play cool indie games that don't care if my network goes down, and don't get angry at me if I want to leave mid-dungeon to hang with friends or whatever. Sorry. :shobon:

Shalinor fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Oct 8, 2012

# ? Oct 8, 2012 21:45

the black husserl: Feb 25, 2005

srand posted:

Project: Gorgon - An Indie MMO by Industry Veterans

I'm not really interested in MMOs. Have you thought of making it a text adventure?

# ? Oct 8, 2012 21:47

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

chiefnewo posted:

The thing that got me about their Kickstarter pitch is that it is called "Oldschool RPG." That's not even pretending to appeal to something other than nostalgia. Oldschool RPG isn't a name of a game or even a decent project name like Obsidian's Project Eternity, it's just "You liked those old RPGs, right? Well there's the pledge button, no don't worry about the rest of this pitch."

I normally like the cheeky What It Says On The Tin names, but combined with the rest of the pitch it did seem a little too "hey, give us money because cloth maps!"

# ? Oct 8, 2012 21:52

srand: Oct 8, 2012

the black husserl posted:

I'm not really interested in MMOs. Have you thought of making it a text adventure?

Do you know how long it took me to talk Eric *out* of a text adventure? Please don't get him started!

In all seriousness, I completely understand if you aren't into MMOs right now - or ever, for that matter. Different games for different people. That's a big reason why we're working on a game like this, after all.

Sigma-X posted:

I'm very curious as to how you're handling the networking backend, specifically developing and testing and managing multiplayer, security, account management etc on an indie budget. [...]

Actually we've done lots of contract work in this vein - of the "Please fix our MMO engine, it doesn't go!" variety - so this is a fair concern to have. These issues can be extremely difficult to solve, especially in a completed code body that didn't think about them beforehand.

Eric's background is specifically in this sort of work: he did large-scale networked training simulation software for navy submarines before being hired by Turbine to work on their low-level engine. (Although he eventually migrated to game systems.) But we don't think fancy server tech is a very good fit for an indie MMO. We'd rather focus on fancy game systems that can differentiate us, rather than fancy server tech.

So our server architecture is probably the simplest possible scaling MMO engine: the world is zone-based a la EQ1/EQ2; each chunk of the game world is managed by a sub-server (a conceptual sub-server, that is; they may be in the same process/same physical machine as other sub-servers, or not, depending on load). The sub-server controls the NPCs in the given geographic region and also validates the PC's behavior (so that player clients can't report that they've flown through walls, etc.). The sub-server consists of two parts: Java "brains" that manage the client connections, overall game state, and NPC combat logic, and a managed Unity3d process tethered to the Java brains; this runs the physics simulation for the zone and reports positions etc. to the Java server. We used this setup so that the exact same physics model is in use on both the client and server, to avoid any "rubber-banding" where the server disagrees with the client's interpretation of the world. Also, less code. A simple area-of-interest system is used to clump players into smaller geographic chunks within the region, and game clients receive status-update info for the players and NPCs in nearby sub-regions.

The server tech is extremely simple, and admittedly a little clunky -- there are loading screens between zones -- but it's completely sufficient for our design. Chat and various other features are handled via separate processes that interconnect with the main server, so that you can e.g. chat while zoning, or chat via a separate client, etc.

If you have specific technical or security questions or concerns, I'll do my best to answer!

# ? Oct 8, 2012 23:07

Shalinor: Jun 10, 2002; _{Can I buy you a rootbeer?}

srand posted:

The server tech is extremely simple, and admittedly a little clunky -- there are loading screens between zones -- but it's completely sufficient for our design. Chat and various other features are handled via separate processes that interconnect with the main server, so that you can e.g. chat while zoning, or chat via a separate client, etc.

That's the bit that most indie MMOs really screw up. Free roaming no-load worlds are an order of magnitude harder to serve than zone-based, yet are so common in indie MMOs as to be the natural assumption - and they're usually done that way for no good reason at all.

Thanks for the detail, that makes this seem a lot more reasonable.

Shalinor fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Oct 8, 2012

# ? Oct 8, 2012 23:27

Saoshyant: Oct 26, 2010

Shalinor posted:

I don't think I'd kickstart a true MUD, but if someone were to do a MUD in the style of Grimrock? Man... that, that I might have to play.

I'm not sure I follow you. Do you mean a graphical MUD and not the standard full text we usually see in the genre? I guess... that could work? Navegation done graphically, events told by text on the side of the screen; something like that.

Though I have always assumed MUDs exist because they are far cheaper to produce than the alternative.

# ? Oct 8, 2012 23:35

fermun: Nov 4, 2009

srand posted:

*cough* Hi. *clears throat*

So! Eric Heimburg and I have been kicking around the MMO industry for quite awhile now, from Asheron's Call 1 & 2 to EQ2 and (an early version of) STO. For the past three years, we've been working on our own game, an indie MMO called Project: Gorgon. We're currently using Kickstarter to try to raise money for halfway decent character models so we can launch in a year and a bit. Random internet people (TM) suggested pimping our project here.

The Project: Gorgon Kickstarter page has more details and our blog - ElderGame.com - has even more.

Thanks for reading! I hope you find it interesting enough to pledge.

- Sandra Powers

A few things regarding just your Kickstarter rather than your project. I am not a PR guy or even a backer but I saw things that, in my opinion, you could improve about your Kickstart page.

Your updates are not numbered and dated on the main page. It's a small thing, but new people seeing your Kickstarter page should know without clicking whether you're putting new updates at the top of the updates list or bottom of the updates list. Dating updates shows how involved you are with your backers.
Your updates do not contain a call to action. You need something in the order of 2000 to 5000 more backers, depending on how much the average backer donates. The only way you will get those backers is if people see it. Every update should thank everyone who has backed so far and ask the reader to share the project page on Twitter or Facebook. You're only thanking, not asking the reader to get involved. To get 5000 people to back, more than that will need to see the page. Some will share on their own initiative, but not everyone will if you don't ask.
Update frequently. 4 or 5 times a week should be your aim for updates, with daily updates for the last 10 days or so. You need people finding you, so you have to make lots of noise.
One of your updates is a link to a blog post! Ahhhhhhhhhhh! Just copy and paste that over when you can, put a link to your website at the bottom of that post if you want to drive traffic to your main page. An update that is just a link that says "the update is actually over here" makes me groan. If the update is too long for a Kickstarter page, paste some teaser bit on the update and then link to the rest of the story.

Again, just my opinions, good luck.

# ? Oct 9, 2012 00:08

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

Yeah, you do have to put the stuff that makes your MMO unique into the updates instead of just sending people to your blog posts.

# ? Oct 9, 2012 00:41

Bieeanshee: Aug 21, 2000; Not keen on keening.; Grimey Drawer

My concern with Gorgon, beyond the other, equally good concerns raised, is this:

quote:

2) How many concurrent users can fit on one game world once?

The answer to this question will determine how much hardware we need. If the servers don�t support enough concurrent users, then we will need more hardware to run the game - possibly more than we can afford.

We haven�t overly optimized the server yet, but even the un-optimized server is pretty strong, so it shouldn�t take too much to reach our goal. This is also something we�re really good at: we�ve optimized server code before and are very comfortable with what this entails, so this really shouldn�t be a problem.

That's... really not a very good answer. At all. Worse, it's not a very good question. How many concurrent players do you expect? How many do you want? Both per zone instance and as an overall active population. Ask anyone who runs a MUD/MUX/MWAHA, UO freeshard, or small-scale MMO like Wurm: if you fail to maintain a critical mass of active players, things fall apart fast.

# ? Oct 9, 2012 01:01

Uncle Jam: Aug 20, 2005; Perfect

If I can steal random people's boats and sail aimlessly until I get killed by a water elemental, I'm in.

# ? Oct 9, 2012 02:22

King Burgundy: Sep 17, 2003; I am the Burgundy King,
I can do anything!

Shalinor posted:

I don't think I'd kickstart a true MUD, but if someone were to do a MUD in the style of Grimrock? Man... that, that I might have to play.

(for reference: this is Legend of Grimrock - you know, that 3D tile-based dungeon crawler thing)

Have I been living under a rock? How did I not know about this game? It looks fantastic!

# ? Oct 9, 2012 03:12

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Bieeardo posted:

My concern with Gorgon, beyond the other, equally good concerns raised, is this:

That's... really not a very good answer. At all. Worse, it's not a very good question. How many concurrent players do you expect? How many do you want? Both per zone instance and as an overall active population. Ask anyone who runs a MUD/MUX/MWAHA, UO freeshard, or small-scale MMO like Wurm: if you fail to maintain a critical mass of active players, things fall apart fast.

Yeah, those are really critical questions. The thing is, this sounds really good and in theory appealing to me, and I'm keeping an eye on it and deciding later, but both population concerns and ongoing replayability are huge issues with small-scale MMOs and that disturbs me.

On the upside for you, it's the first kickstarter MMO that's even tempting me.

MikeJF fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Oct 9, 2012

# ? Oct 9, 2012 03:17

Bieeanshee: Aug 21, 2000; Not keen on keening.; Grimey Drawer

It's also the first one I've seen with something playable. Most Kickstarter MMOs are filled with mockups, bad lore, and the promises of idea guys.

# ? Oct 9, 2012 03:45

Obsurveyor: Jan 10, 2003

Uncle Jam posted:

If I can steal random people's boats and sail aimlessly until I get killed by a water elemental, I'm in.

If I can steal random people's boats, lower the plank, cruise past another boat I have placed, move to the placed boat's plank while the stolen boat cruises off into nowhere, then I'm in. I may not have been able to kill you mean evils in Ultima Online but I was great at stealing your boats and sending them to hell. :devil:

# ? Oct 9, 2012 04:14

Overemotional Robot: Mar 16, 2008; Robotor just hasn't been the same since 9/11...

Obsurveyor posted:

If I can steal random people's boats, lower the plank, cruise past another boat I have placed, move to the placed boat's plank while the stolen boat cruises off into nowhere, then I'm in. I may not have been able to kill you mean evils in Ultima Online but I was great at stealing your boats and sending them to hell.

Oh my gosh I used to do this too. This was the best.

# ? Oct 9, 2012 04:18

Sigma-X: Jun 17, 2005

Sandra and Eric, I wish you guys the best of luck - it sounds like you have an incredibly realistic goal and the capabilities to pull it off. I would also reccomended you consider the PR advice above and a working in a truncated version of what you explained to me regarding your networking chops (something digestible in 250 words or so) somewhere into your kick starter.

I also think it might be a bit wordy and would benefit from being a bit more concise to make sure people don't gloss over things like your actual ability to make and indie mmo.

# ? Oct 9, 2012 04:22

SupSuper: Apr 8, 2009; At the Heart of the city is an Alien horror, so vile and so powerful that not even death can claim it.

coconono posted:

Dysis: Totally not a minecraft mod.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/330858688/dysis?ref=category

The gameplay seems pretty different, but I know what you mean. I get that Minecraft has really popularized voxel terrains, but there's more you can do with them than having the same-looking stock-size-cube grass hills :v:

surely some distinction isn't too much to ask for.

# ? Oct 9, 2012 08:43

NTRabbit: Aug 15, 2012; i wear this armour to protect myself from the histrionics of hysterical women

bitches

This ORBITOR looks like a cool game, and important to me at least is locally made in an industry that is slowly dying and relocating to Canada, plus it seems popular on Greenlight - but it's not getting any money. I had to run into disappointment eventually if I kept looking at KS.

# ? Oct 9, 2012 13:01

srand: Oct 8, 2012

Thank you, everybody, for the advice - and the questions! This is our first Kickstarter (and we're not exactly PR people), so getting a feel for your concerns is huge. And you are absolutely right about the project. (I'll be spending some time today concisifying.)

# ? Oct 9, 2012 17:00

turn it up TURN ME ON: Mar 19, 2012; In the Grim Darkness of the Future, there is only war.

...and delicious ice cream.

So, is anyone still excited for Star Command? I feel like FTL hit a very similar itch and was able to do an excellent job of it. Not to mention FTL's kickstarter started far after Star Command's, and finished well before.

# ? Oct 9, 2012 20:22

Shalinor: Jun 10, 2002; _{Can I buy you a rootbeer?}

SquadronROE posted:

So, is anyone still excited for Star Command? I feel like FTL hit a very similar itch and was able to do an excellent job of it. Not to mention FTL's kickstarter started far after Star Command's, and finished well before.

Yes, but mostly because FTL doesn't have an iOS or Android release. If they manage to beat Star Command to the punch, though...

(I'd probably still snag both though, as I suspect they'll play pretty differently)

# ? Oct 9, 2012 20:51

omeg: Sep 3, 2012

M.O.R.E. - old school turn-based 4X space strategy game

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1447560584/more-oldschool-turn-based-4x-space-strategy-game

Just found out about this. Seems almost too good to be true, but the video does show a lot of work done already. It's almost funded, but more :10bux:

can't hurt.

# ? Oct 9, 2012 23:48

Sefer: Sep 2, 2006; Not supposed to be here today

omeg posted:

M.O.R.E. - old school turn-based 4X space strategy game

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1447560584/more-oldschool-turn-based-4x-space-strategy-game

Just found out about this. Seems almost too good to be true, but the video does show a lot of work done already. It's almost funded, but more can't hurt.

Personally, I'm hoping for the $100k Galactic Council/Extra Diplomacy options; good diplomacy options are something I always felt were missing from MoO2. They have said if they don't hit that goal it will likely be DLC down the line, though, so it should be in there eventually.

# ? Oct 9, 2012 23:59

CharlieFoxtrot: Mar 27, 2007; organize digital employees

If someone wanted to make a sci-fi 4X that was less "new and different ways/places to fight spaceship battles" and more along the lines of Alpha Centauri's exploration of future politics/sociology/ideology, I would dump all my money into it so fast.

# ? Oct 10, 2012 01:55

Peaceful Anarchy: Sep 18, 2005; sXe
I am the math man.

Old School RPG updated and while I still have my doubts about them pulling it off they're doing a decent, if slow, job of saying the right things now. I don't know if they can overcome the rough start and in particular the two games for one goal seems out of reach, but I hope so.

Confirmation that this is pretty much a spiritual sequel to Wizardry:

quote:

Shaker: An Old School RPG is a first-person perspective, sci-fi/fantasy game set in a Bridge world between the future and the very distant past. Taking the role of operative James Connelly, an employee of Shaker Corporation, you are called upon to set right a deadly chain of events that began millennia ago.

Shaker: An Old School RPG features a six-character party - you and your 3 crew as well as 2 recruitable player characters.

All characters and recruits have key statistics as quantified by Shaker Corporation: Strength, Vitality, Agility, Quickness, Intelligence, and Psy. The values of these attributes determine what Profession you qualify for. Your characters are also born with a specific BioTrait pattern. Similar to �race� in old-school games, a character�s BioTrait pre-disposes gives them certain strengths, weaknesses and powers. Recruiting locals (which you can, of course, fire) will help you to balance your party.

Why couldn't they have put this stuff up when they started the kickstarter?

# ? Oct 10, 2012 03:28

Dr. Video Games 0031: Jul 17, 2004

Well, to be fair, Project Eternity had a very similar start and there wasn't as many people complaining about it with that. The biggest difference is that Obsidian had a codename. All we knew about Eternity at first was it was an old school fantasy RPG. It wasn't until they started throwing in tons of lore and gameplay details in the updates that we actually knew anything about that game.

It seems like "Old School RPG" is following suit.

# ? Oct 10, 2012 03:33

Peaceful Anarchy: Sep 18, 2005; sXe
I am the math man.

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

Well, to be fair, Project Eternity had a very similar start and there wasn't as many people complaining about it with that. The biggest difference is that Obsidian had a codename. All we knew about Eternity at first was it was an old school fantasy RPG. It wasn't until they started throwing in tons of lore and gameplay details in the updates that we actually knew anything about that game.

It seems like "Old School RPG" is following suit.

The biggest difference is Obsidian has been consistently making RPGs for the past decade so they have a larger pre-existing fanbase and even with little info people knew they'd make a good game. The names behind Loot Drop may have enough clout to bring people in for a look and maybe be convinced with general details, but not enough to pitch a concept alone.

# ? Oct 10, 2012 03:40

Illessa: Aug 31, 2012

Peaceful Anarchy posted:

The biggest difference is Obsidian has been consistently making RPGs for the past decade so they have a larger pre-existing fanbase and even with little info people knew they'd make a good game. The names behind Loot Drop may have enough clout to bring people in for a look and maybe be convinced with general details, but not enough to pitch a concept alone.

It's also become obvious as the campaign has gone on that despite the "Hey, remember all those awesome games we made" content-free video (which I looked kind of askance at - not as much as Old School RPG, but still), they've actually got a ton of pre-production work done and ready to be trickled out. Hell there's an in-game screenshot coming today.

Speaking of PE, I was idly paging through Obsidian's comment history today and they posted a pitch for a game called "Hidden" Chris Avellone wrote about 4 years ago (apologies for the length, but KS is dumb and has no perma-links for comments and it's like a dozen pages back already).

Obsidian posted:

Myths and Folk Tales exist, see, they fill the seams in our world.

You know them already, but you forget fast. The faint trilling of a flute beneath a sewer grate, a click-spinning bike wheel with a length of blonde hair twined in its spokes, the click-click of glass-spiked heels on a sidewalk echoing, echoing, then... wait, it's gone. The faint smell of brimstone from the local pub with the ash-blackened windows and the men who walk out more hunched than they went in, a nest of filthy blankets arranged in a square pen that seems too small for a human to sleep on.

The world we walk in is one we see through untraumatized eyes... the one you see without accident, the see something else... more than you bargained for.
Once seen, these things can never be unseen. You become a part of the hidden world, its rules, its inhabitants - and their bargains.

It'll creep up on you. You might smell spoiled beef from an empty alley, a fingernail scratching a tune on a record in a sealed attic� or catch a sewer manhole sliding noiselessly closed. A grinning smile within the door of a doghouse. A sudden feeling of d�j� vu and a faint, distant jazz saxophone when you enter a hotel lobby. Smoke and ash lingering in the air where no fire has burned, and the faint smell of the charnel house may come from a children's playground. Your grandmother in a brief moment of lucidity, recite a poem from the 16th century and tells you the third line will determine your fate, and all the while, the candles in her windows flicker even when there's no breeze to brush by them. Every alley merits a second glance, then a third... but when you turn away, your surroundings have changed. There is splashing in empty fountains, a giggle behind an abandoned storefront, the ting of a glass shard falling... you may even hear the dust motes whispering amongst themselves. Then - it gets worse.

When something cuts you deep, physically or emotionally, sometimes you catch a glimpse of the world as it unfolds� walls peel away, tiles fall from floors into the Abyss, and reality becomes a hallucination you happen to have shared with everyone you knew. Distance has no meanings, streets stretch on forever, and things at your peripheral vision suddenly become very, very real. Nothing can be measured, and you see a glimpse of the infinite.

Demons lurk in bars, waiting and getting drunk on human misery, as they sip emptiness from glasses of pessimism... and wait for humanity to come in to pick and choose which of those empty vessels they wish to sample and fill with their energy. Mothers forget their children, their houses filled with empty cribs whose contents have been misplaced. Some say there's a dark overlord behind it all, pulling the strings - Lucifer himself, the puppeteer, the one-we-all-answer-to, the fallen angel... but thing is, no one's seen him for some time. It's like he's vanished, gone, into the air... like a folk tale.

Where has he gone, you say? Well, that's the part of the story where you walk in - or wake up, might be better. You and this fellow Lucifer, turns out you have a history. A brief one, a cloudy one, but very, very troubling.

But that's how all tales begin... the tales worth telling, that is.

Now I'm kind of depressed that they're not Kickstarting that instead of fantasy-ville. I'd give them twice my PE pledge in an instant. Maybe more.

# ? Oct 10, 2012 13:34

Al!: Apr 2, 2010

Illessa posted:

Now I'm kind of depressed that they're not Kickstarting that instead of fantasy-ville. I'd give them twice my PE pledge in an instant. Maybe more.

The fact that they have stuff like this in them and chose the safe swords and sorcery path is why I can't bring myself to pledge for PE.

# ? Oct 10, 2012 14:12

Drifter: Oct 22, 2000; Belated Bear Witness; Soiled Meat

Al! posted:

The fact that they have stuff like this in them and chose the safe swords and sorcery path is why I can't bring myself to pledge for PE.

But PE is something they CLEARLY had a desire to do. Sure it's a safer bet, but they weren't also expecting the groundswell of support. Even if you don't help Kickstart PE, you should still at least check it out upon release, so hopefully they are able to build a reputation of independent success and continue/begin to bring NEW and ORIGINAL IPs out.

# ? Oct 10, 2012 15:29

CommissarMega: Nov 18, 2008; THUNDERDOME LOSER

Al! posted:

The fact that they have stuff like this in them and chose the safe swords and sorcery path is why I can't bring myself to pledge for PE.

They didn't think that they would have made the Kickstarter- hell, ropekid himself, who's been at the receiving end of all of SA's Obsidian love, thought they had a 50/50 chance of making the initial $1.1 million. Supporting Project: Eternity shows that they in turn, have support for their more creative ideas.

Also, if you've been paying attention in the Project: Eternity thread, you'll see that they're doing quite a few new things even with the 'tired setting' :colbert:

# ? Oct 10, 2012 15:37

coffeetable: Feb 5, 2006; TELL ME AGAIN HOW GREAT BRITAIN WOULD BE IF IT WAS RULED BY THE MERCILESS JACKBOOT OF PRINCE CHARLES

YES I DO TALK TO PLANTS ACTUALLY

Al! posted:

The fact that they have stuff like this in them and chose the safe swords and sorcery path is why I can't bring myself to pledge for PE.

There was an Avellone interview where the senior devs in Obsidian all made pitches for the company's Kickstarter. There was a lot of variety, but they settled on P:E (Brenneke's pitch) because BG and IWD is the only bit of history they all share, and this is a chance to ~do it right~

That aside, it's also an opportunity for OE to set up a cash cow and step away from the abyss, and when it comes to cash cows, there's none better than swords and sorcery. P:E highly likely to be a damned good game and with >50,000 marketers already recruited there's a chance they'll end up able to spend the next ten years turning out whatever risky projects they care to.

e: i mean look how many people are already going out of their way to defend it, there's no way it's not going to be a roaring success

# ? Oct 10, 2012 16:42

NieR Occomata: Jan 18, 2009; Glory to Mankind.

coffeetable posted:

e: i mean look how many people are already going out of their way to defend it, there's no way it's not going to be a roaring success

That's because it's an Obsidian project and being an Obsidian fan demands myopia and staunch, vitriolic defense of any slight against the company, real or imagined, and a tacit refusal to acknowledge the reality that Obsidian makes mistakes and is sometimes Bad at Things.

I mean heck I backed PE and even I'll admit that it being high fantasy is really, really loving disappointing and kind of lame.

But I mean, whatever. At least the people badmouthing Kickstarter/this thread for not backing PE to make it the highest funded videogame project or whatever the hell it is they wanted and were intensely passive-aggressive about it have left.

NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Oct 10, 2012

# ? Oct 10, 2012 16:47

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# ? May 10, 2024 08:00

Illessa: Aug 31, 2012

CommissarMega posted:

They didn't think that they would have made the Kickstarter- hell, ropekid himself, who's been at the receiving end of all of SA's Obsidian love, thought they had a 50/50 chance of making the initial $1.1 million. Supporting Project: Eternity shows that they in turn, have support for their more creative ideas.

Also, if you've been paying attention in the Project: Eternity thread, you'll see that they're doing quite a few new things even with the 'tired setting'

Yeah, at the end of the day I get why they went for the safest bet, for their first Kickstarter, and I'm sure PE will be great, I just thought it was an interesting buried nugget and I kind of took to it cause I think modern day urban fantasy is under-utilised in games at the moment.

Though it did also make me wonder why across 18 updates they haven't done a really meaty dive into the story? Even if they have to cover it in spoiler warnings to ward off those who want to avoid going in anything other than completely blind, it would be really nice to see a story pitch, or a short story set in the world like the Shadowrun and Banner Saga guys did.

Cause I've been keeping up with rope kid's updates here and on his formspring as best I can, and they're obviously working a lot of cool details into the setting, but there's been nothing that I've felt I can really get my teeth into which just makes it hard to break out of the "meh, classic fantasy" mindset. Something evocative that touches on some of the moods and themes that will inform the game could be just the thing to get us unconvinced types excited and upping our pledges.

# ? Oct 10, 2012 18:26

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Kickstarter Gaming - for $10.000,00 you get a "don't steal my money" emoji

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