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Hey guys, what'd you think of the Charles Dexter Ward kickstarter not making what it should? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/agustincordes/h-p-lovecrafts-the-case-of-charles-dexter-ward Looks like a great project to me. I'd chalk it up to asking too much, and the public not willing to fork over cash before their first kickstarter, Asylum, is completed. It's a little worrying to me since I'm actually in pre-production on a Lovecraftian-spoofing adventure we'd love to kickstart, and I really want all good things Lovecraft to succeed, and it looks like Charley Ward ain't gonna make it.
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Oct 21, 2014 17:00
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MNC was a terrific fusion of the shooter and MOBA models, practically seamless, but they decided it wasn't MOBA enough and opted to make SMNC more like a traditional MOBA; arenas were bigger so you spent more time slogging your way to the actual fight, there were more clearly identifiable "lanes", characters took a poo poo-ton more punishment before going down, and you could no longer repair or rebuild defense towers. MNC had exciting turnarounds because the arenas were small and the combatants were lethal, but SMNC is a zero-sum slog typical of most MOBAs where the game is decided about halfway through the actual match, and then the rest is just watching one team get ground down. (Unsurprisingly, losing teams would leak players, since rewards were tied to victory.) You quickly ended up with dedicated teams just dominating and no room for newbies and pubbers to play. Add in a monetization scheme where people were rewarded for throwing money at the game - a lot of money - and it drove away the casual crowd that keeps a game like that alive.
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Oct 21, 2014 17:04
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Alien Rope Burn posted:MNC was a terrific fusion of the shooter and MOBA models, practically seamless, but they decided it wasn't MOBA enough and opted to make SMNC more like a traditional MOBA; arenas were bigger so you spent more time slogging your way to the actual fight, there were more clearly identifiable "lanes", characters took a poo poo-ton more punishment before going down, and you could no longer repair or rebuild defense towers. MNC had exciting turnarounds because the arenas were small and the combatants were lethal, but SMNC is a zero-sum slog typical of most MOBAs where the game is decided about halfway through the actual match, and then the rest is just watching one team get ground down. (Unsurprisingly, losing teams would leak players, since rewards were tied to victory.) And that's without the Bitcoin miners
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Oct 21, 2014 17:34
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MrBims posted:Thank god, that gives me some hope that gamers are starting to develop some self-control.  I suspect that we might have hit peak kickstarter, and people have realised that promises are generally vapor, lending weight to the idea that publishers might be the necessary boot up the arse that developers deserve, if not entirely need. We're watching some fairly ludicrous examples of people overreaching spectacularly, especially on their first game, and the outright scams have started to shake out.
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Oct 21, 2014 17:47
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Mr Underhill posted:Hey guys, what'd you think of the Charles Dexter Ward kickstarter not making what it should? I hate to say it but people are getting tired of boring Lovecraft games, so unless you have a really good game (and pitch!) planned you'll have a challenging time.
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Oct 21, 2014 18:07
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Eruonen posted:I hate to say it but people are getting tired of boring Lovecraft games, so unless you have a really good game (and pitch!) planned you'll have a challenging time. As well they should. Why would people be funding boring games irrespective of their setting?
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Oct 21, 2014 18:08
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Mr Underhill posted:Hey guys, what'd you think of the Charles Dexter Ward kickstarter not making what it should? 1. The first kickstarter not being finished. 2. Some bullshit about "officially licensed Lovecraft" when Lovecraft's works are in the public domain.
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Oct 21, 2014 18:09
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CottonWolf posted:As well they should. Why would people be funding boring games irrespective of their setting? Because they have zombies in them, duh.
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Oct 21, 2014 18:11
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HJE-Cobra posted:Yeah, holy crap, his deleted tweet actually said “I am going to kill gabe newell. He is going to die.” He has now been ousted from his own company. quote:My temper and tendency to use twitter to vent has been a consistent problem since I entered the games industry, and I just can’t do it. I don’t have the willpower necessary to be the “face” of a company. If I do continue to work in games it’ll be as an anonymous 1 of 1000 at some lovely corporation, not the most public figure of a single digit sized team. Well with an attitude like that I can't wait to see what "lovely corporation" hires him.
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Oct 21, 2014 18:12
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dijon du jour posted:Because they have zombies in them, duh. You've got me there.
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Oct 21, 2014 18:14
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macnbc posted:He has now been ousted from his own company. Yeah, my first thought reading those lines you quoted was "oh good, he clearly learned nothing from this"
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Oct 21, 2014 18:19
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macnbc posted:Well with an attitude like that I can't wait to see what "lovely corporation" hires him. I suppose handing out Large Coke's with Monopoly scratch tags on them at McDonald's technically counts as "working" in "games."
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Oct 21, 2014 18:19
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Mr Underhill posted:Hey guys, what'd you think of the Charles Dexter Ward kickstarter not making what it should? Not enough gifs
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Oct 21, 2014 18:23
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Peas and Rice posted:Some bullshit about "officially licensed Lovecraft" when Lovecraft's works are in the public domain. Yeah, that was a little unnerving given how encouraging Lovecraft was about people using his characters everywhere. I actually stayed up an entire night to research what you can and cannot get away with using of his work and I'm still baffled. What's 100% sure is that the phrase Call Of Cthulhu is trademarked/copyrighted, as weird and hosed up as that is, and - on the brighter side - copyright on all his stuff in the EU at least has expired and it's all in the public domain. Being from Europe and planning to make a Lovecraft spoof (but using American kickstarter), I really, really hope we're in the clear. By the way, they actually copyrighted HIS NAME! So you can't say HP Lovecraft's yadda yadda without paying a license fee, which you really wouldn't want to do anyway, but hey. Eruonen posted:I hate to say it but people are getting tired of boring Lovecraft games, so unless you have a really good game (and pitch!) planned you'll have a challenging time. I'm hoping the "not serious tentacle stuff but poking fun at it" angle will add a little freshness. Like, I haven't had the time to play Cthulhu saves the world,which was also kickstarted, but I love the idea of the game and how it looks. I would've gladly thrown 10 bucks at it had I known about KS at the moment.
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Oct 21, 2014 18:44
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Geight posted:MNC didn't deserve to go out the way it did. Abandoned before several developer promises were fulfilled so that they could release a bastardized version with the fun parts gutted out to make room for more predatory monetization models. The schadenfreude from watching SMNC crash and burn is the only thing MNC players have as a comfort; I'm just glad that the crowdfunding scene has collectively decided to not let Uber take advantage of them again. SMNC was crowdfunded? The only crowdfunded game they had, I thought, was Planetary Annihilation. Which is a game I'm starting to really love. A few more performance tweaks so we can run our own servers without needing $1200/month dedicated hardware and I've got everything I backed for.
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Oct 21, 2014 18:45
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Zaphod42 posted:Yeah, my first thought reading those lines you quoted was "oh good, he clearly learned nothing from this" Some people just don't deserve their dreams. Dude sounds like a real piece of work. On another Kickstarter related note, Starcrawlers updated with this: Starcrawlers Update #31 posted:First off, the big news: I'm not sure how I feel about the episodic game updates, but the project is looking really good overall. I like the idea of beta testing and releasing a polished chunk of the game, but I'm worried the chapter based releases will just be too thin to keep my interest though. That said, Wasteland 2's Arizona really benefited from the beta test while the second half needed such a beta test IMO. Maybe it'll work with Startcrawlers!
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Oct 21, 2014 18:56
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beta keys for Massive Chalice via Humble are going out.
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Oct 21, 2014 18:57
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Peas and Rice posted:1. The first kickstarter not being finished. Lovecraft's great-grandfather's great-great-great-grandson, Robert C. Harrall, seemingly has managed to become the executor of to manage Lovecraft's estate under the title "Lovecraft Properties, LLC", which is what they're referencing. Harrall claims to have the copyrights to Lovecraft's post-1926 work (Charles Dexter Ward was published in 1941), but there's no solid evidence for this. From what little information I would find, all Harrall seems to be interested in is ensuring Lovecraft's legacy is well-treated, but I can't find any sign of him putting out any legal threats. Rumor has it he's looking to make sure the estate gets a cut if there was a big-budget adaptation of one of Lovecraft's works. Otherwise he seems to give permission freely; you just have to ask. Granted, Harrall would have to be able to prove his assertions if he ever took things to court. Once again, there's no evidence so far that the copyright for Charles Dexter Ward was ever renewed, but it's probably safer for an indie publisher just to cover their rear end.
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Oct 21, 2014 19:02
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Lovecraft's great-grandfather's great-great-great-grandson, Robert C. Harrall, seemingly has managed to become the executor of to manage Lovecraft's estate under the title "Lovecraft Properties, LLC", which is what they're referencing. Harrall claims to have the copyrights to Lovecraft's post-1926 work (Charles Dexter Ward was published in 1941), but there's no solid evidence for this. From what little information I would find, all Harrall seems to be interested in is ensuring Lovecraft's legacy is well-treated, but I can't find any sign of him putting out any legal threats. Rumor has it he's looking to make sure the estate gets a cut if there was a big-budget adaptation of one of Lovecraft's works. Otherwise he seems to give permission freely; you just have to ask. Wow, I thought I'd scoured the internet and I never came up on that info. Thanks for that! Man, Lovecraft would be PISSED at this whole license deal, lemme tell you that. And also pissed about the black president, too, probably.
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Oct 21, 2014 19:37
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^^^ Totally missed Alien Rope's response somehow, that is a pretty good summary. Peas and Rice posted:2. Some bullshit about "officially licensed Lovecraft" when Lovecraft's works are in the public domain. There's disputes about this for some of his stories, but it'll be true for everything soon enough regardless. JossiRossi fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Oct 21, 2014 |
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Oct 21, 2014 20:32
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Hmmm, apparently Jagged Alliance: Flashback is now out. It's got a release trailer and everything. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK7XjzUDWRs
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Oct 21, 2014 20:58
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Chairchucker posted:Hmmm, apparently Jagged Alliance: Flashback is now out. It's got a release trailer and everything. Thanks for reminding me, I got an email about this earlier this morning and then forgot about it. Gotta go find my steam key...
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Oct 21, 2014 21:13
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Paranautical Activity looked like loving garbage so I'm glad it's ogre.
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Oct 21, 2014 21:23
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funakupo posted:beta keys for Massive Chalice via Humble are going out.
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Oct 21, 2014 21:23
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JossiRossi posted:^^^ It bears mentioning that Charles Dexter Ward was originally printed in Weird Tales, so in theory there have been various owners of that magazine that could claim copyright on that over Lovecraft... if the copyright had ever been renewed. The copyrights to a lot of Weird Tales stories were reclaimed by their authors, but Lovecraft was never around to reclaim his, what with being dead and all.
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Oct 21, 2014 21:30
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I just don't have that much time for a second competitive-only RTS, especially when it's being touted as a "starter game to be fully developed later as a service" as well, just like PA. I understand they want to reuse their engine, but seeing them try and dip into the well again so quickly feels like really bad timing. I'm not that upset about PA, but I need more reasons to develop confidence in them for future kickstarters. The problem is a game like PA can't even be competitive so I don't know why they're trying it apart from the fact every multiplayer game as to be "competitive" (including loving Evolve) even those that make awful spectator games or are balanced like poo poo.
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Oct 21, 2014 22:00
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How can Evolve be competitive? How do you make a competition of a game that's 4 on 1?
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Oct 21, 2014 22:07
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No idea but they literally did a video of fat dota caster ayesee with one of the devs over a match (of a game that hasn't even been released, mind). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU90_1Sowfo
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Oct 21, 2014 22:08
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Lets! Get! Weird! posted:No idea but they literally did a video of fat dota caster ayesee with one of the devs over a match (of a game that hasn't even been released, mind). Well, at least doing something else might keep him from casting dota 2.
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Oct 21, 2014 22:10
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Well you see GREETINGS AND SALUTATIONS EVOLVE FANS I'M AARON AYESEE CHAMBERS HERE TO BRING YOU ANOTHER EXCITING ROUND OF
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Oct 21, 2014 22:11
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Lets! Get! Weird! posted:No idea but they literally did a video of fat dota caster ayesee with one of the devs over a match (of a game that hasn't even been released, mind). This reminds me very vaguely of Giants: Citizen Kabuto. I wonder if we'll see any more multiplayer games where the teams are asymmetrical.
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Oct 21, 2014 22:13
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CottonWolf posted:As well they should. Why would people be funding boring games irrespective of their setting? My post was poorly written but I meant Lovecraft games in general were getting boring. a7m2 fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Oct 21, 2014 |
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Oct 21, 2014 22:19
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That little writeup really drives home what a supremely stupid move that was on his part to make those tweets, because not only did he screw himself over, but he also completely screwed over the other people working on the game who have probably been working for free up to this point and didn't do anything wrong.
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Oct 21, 2014 22:34
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Segmentation Fault posted:Paranautical Activity looked like loving garbage so I'm glad it's ogre. I can't believe the picture they went with as the "cover" for that game. I mean, the game itself looks awful too, but holy poo poo that high school binder anime image is something else.
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Oct 21, 2014 22:42
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Great Rumbler posted:That little writeup really drives home what a supremely stupid move that was on his part to make those tweets, because not only did he screw himself over, but he also completely screwed over the other people working on the game who have probably been working for free up to this point and didn't do anything wrong. Yeah I feel really awful for his team because he just tanked them completely overnight, and they did nothing wrong. Be careful who you work with or for, I guess. Inspector_666 posted:I can't believe the picture they went with as the "cover" for that game. I mean, the game itself looks awful too, but holy poo poo that high school binder anime image is something else. Yeah that image always seemed massively unappealing to me.
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Oct 21, 2014 22:44
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Inspector_666 posted:I can't believe the picture they went with as the "cover" for that game. I mean, the game itself looks awful too, but holy poo poo that high school binder anime image is something else. This is something I found really funny because the screengrab I saw of the tweets cut off the part where Steam's scrolling banner still listed the game as Early Access despite it being released, which is what he was actually complaining about. But when I saw that terrible banner image without the bottom few centimetres and thought "Okay, yeah, I agree that is a loving terrible picture but wouldn't you have chosen it?"
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Oct 21, 2014 22:45
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Zaphod42 posted:Yeah I feel really awful for his team because he just tanked them completely overnight, and they did nothing wrong. I get the feeling that his attitude didn't just appear out of the blue all of a sudden. It makes me feel REALLY bad that they probably had to suffer through working with the rear end.
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Oct 21, 2014 22:46
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macnbc posted:I get the feeling that his attitude didn't just appear out of the blue all of a sudden. It makes me feel REALLY bad that they probably had to suffer through working with the rear end. Yeah people are now coming out of the woodwork posting chat logs with him where he was insufferable. Problem is the people working with him probably signed up online, and by the time they realized how bad he was they were too invested in the project to give up and move on. And they did actually make a game, and putting in all the work to pull that off makes it really hard to just walk away.
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Oct 21, 2014 22:55
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Zaphod42 posted:Yeah people are now coming out of the woodwork posting chat logs with him where he was insufferable. These are amazing http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=135307789&postcount=1612 Mike and Travis are the PA guys. quote:James Anderson: i had no idea paranautical activity was going to be so hard
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Oct 21, 2014 22:59
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James Anderson is right but he also kind of sounds like a huge bitch lol
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Oct 21, 2014 23:07
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