Tigranes

Not only that, but in the very first combat the dude ran right up to the PC in cover and shot at him, in the second battle, the PC planned it well, but the AI did nothing but sit there and shoot whatever was closest. The fact that it used grenades and sought cover doesn't actually say anything else, because clearly the AI is simply scripted to seek cover within a certain radius if available, and to shoot grenades if it spots >2 enemies in <x radius. I mean, just about every turn-based RPG has had dumb AI so you can't blast Shadowrun for that, but I certainly don't expect anything on that front, and expect to play on Hard(est) and hope it's a fun challenge. If I'm wrong, then great!

F3 and FNV have virtually identical gameplay. It's disingenious to like one and not like another on that front. Where they diverge is, primarily, the quality of the writing, the setting choice, the design of environments.

Yeah, that's a big strawman, because Fargo couldn't afford to fund W2 or Torment by himself without risking his financial future, whereas Garriott could (and if he can't, then he's wasted a lot of money). Unless Fargo has more than $5 million in the bank...

Just preordered the basic game. It looks really, really good. Sadly the AI seems as dumb as ever, but that's a problem in just about every game...

Yeah, that looks really good. I'm going to have a closer look tonight then pre-order if I still like. So.... poor...

Graphics are super ugly, but I hardly think that's the most important aspect of a low-budget Kickstarter game. The complete lack of an art direction/style is another issue, of course.

Yep, that scenario is the most likely - it sells a few hundred thousand, meaning around 10% of the sales were already made & revenues spent for Kickstarter. Without a publisher it is still a healthy profit for the developer, but nothing to convince the publisher that if they jumped in it would be worthwhile. And to be honest, that's all for the best. I'd actually hate, personally, for games like W2 to sell 3 million copies or something and then publishers start making dozens of them, making future kickstarters nonviable. "We want to create the new Torment!" "Why would we back that, when we've got a publisher making one, and it's kind of the same except easier and with lots of romances?" If Kickstarter games are TOO successful then the really niche games and gamers that made it possible in the first place will find that, once again, they are left behind as the niche. The real question is whether 'a few hundred thousand' sales will be enough for companies like inXile to then break out of kickstarter also - e.g. their first 2-3 games are KS, then after that the revenue keeps them going for future games. That is surely what Fargo is looking forward to, KS as literally 'kickstarting' independent, sustainable mid-sized studios. If that works it will be a wonderful model.

Meh. Dude hasn't made anything good for 15+ years, and it's an MMO. I assume it will get funded, so I'll check it out when it's made, but no enthusiasm whatsoever.

inXile is looking at adding more tiers - e.g. you now see the $250 tier has been duplicated (albeit at $275).

Second update is up. The stretch goals seem to be pretty focused this time - choose protagonist gender at 1.2m (passed), two new writers and richer world at 1.5m, Monte Cook as writer, orchestra for Mark Morgan & additional companion at 2m. I'm actually in favour of this - I felt P:E offered far too many different kinds of in-game features as reward, and I'd like the designers to be able to make those decisions as they go without feeling contractually bound to do x and y and z. Besides which, Torment is where you just want them to write and developt he world, not add 6 different races for the character or something.

Right, but you can see how it would quickly lead to a lot of grief for a lot of people. In my mind honesty is always a two-way street. The other person has to be ready to not only trust you, but at least hear you out fully, to have a reasonably similar ground for understanding, etc. Honesty in PR doesn't work when people don't read half of what you say and are used to wild speculation based on what they hear, etc.

He's really selling it on his twitter is all. I have no expectation for what he would say. Would be interesting for him to say "I had a feeling this would happen" but then I guess it'd come across as overly arrogant? I guess the thing is, is this the only thing he should say? I know devs talk up kickstarter for allowing them to communicate directly with the fans, but even then it still seems the fans want to eat up the PR type commentary and announces. GAF had a whole thread about Obsidian's "weak" (work in progress) concept art and were quite critical, stating they wanted to see more (marketing like) concept arts that Wasteland 2 had. There were many here that echoed the same (though more came to the defense here too). Besides, all I asked was if Fargo is blown away by how quickly it's gone, how quickly was he expecting it to take? This starts to go beyond just this thread, but how much honest discussion do fans really want? Or are they more satisfied with relatively constant updates, but for them to still have a marketing/PR/promotional perspective added to them. At least for games, Torment I think is the key point where the Kickstarter honeymoon is over. This was happening already with W2 and P:E, but basically, Kickstarter is now a consumer proposition. People are lining up to get the early bird special deals; there was a protracted voting period on what kind of deals were desirable; many back without even reading the proposition (indeed, we have evidence of people doing this for at least Banner Saga); there is a slick marketing video that two dudes in a basement could not do easily; there is a long media campaign; the journalists and Fargo et al's friends and admirers in the industry come out in droves to help spread the word and enthusiasm (including MCA). We still do have the romantic idea of making the impossible possible, supporting the underdog, etc, but really, I think this is where we see Kickstarter mature into a different form of business relationship. How much honest discussion do fans really want? How much 'honest discussion' do two people in a romantic relationship really want? How much 'honest feedback' do you really want from your teacher? How much 'honest discussion' is sensible as opposed to suicide in a relationship between fifteen dudes and several tens of thousands of people who are giving them money for services? We saw with Chris Taylor that honesty doesn't get you very far. Anyway, I know you're not proposing that he be 'completely honest' or anything like that. I do think Fargo understands the role he is meant to play and he is to his credit good at doing it. If that renders them disingenious so be it, but I hardly think so.

It's funded. Well done indeed. alanschu: What do you expect him to say, "I'm not surprised"?

Put in $95.

I think they plan to sell at $40 or so on release, though I can't remember where I saw it.

That part is actually the easiest part of the fight, but yeah, dying there really sucks. Just try and run up the middle of the 'ramp', which should give you enough time to reflexively dodge the tentacles. Actually, you don't need to dodge a lot of them. Put it on easy for the fight. Flotsam has good quests but not much story; after the Kayran you go through the climax, then to either the army camp or the dwarf city for Chapter 2. Both are excellent, and both are worth playing. You could have a save at end of Flotsam then try both.

The camera-bound auto-targeting does get wonky sometimes, but I genuinely believe that for Gothic and Risen games it has a lot to do with player skill. When I first started Risen 1, I hadn't played much of them and killing a single wolf took more than a dozen reloads, even at higher levels. Having played G1-3 & R1-2 at least twice each, now coming back to R1, I could take on Black Wolves and Boars much earlier than I was meant to and survive. Now that I'm halfway through the game I can beat anything, including multiple enemies, though it does take some hair-raising finesse, and I'm playing on Hard. Yaga-Shura with SCS is really 'epic' in the sense that it's probably the only time I've ever seen high-level CRPG parties truly fight to the last second-level spell and potion.

Risen 1, went with an axe-wielding Inquisition mage. That means a shortage of skill points, which suits me just fine. Eventually I'll be freezing then hulk-smashing things. The island is just really, really well designed for exploring. In the central areas you get a little disoriented but not too lost, there are natural and subtle dividing lines between different regions, you never go too long without finding something odd, and cavernous systems, heights and small paths are used to interconnect areas in unexpected ways. And of course monsters.

Shamelessly stolen from the Codex: They will continue to update that infodump, link here. The concept / setup sounds perfect to me.

Youtubing the recently released Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree, No-Man, etc) album before the CD arrives in the mail tomorrow. It seems excellent, which is good as I've ticketed for his NYC concert in April. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kLcoEJm_84

Supplying editors, DM sets, persistent multiplayer, etc. as NWN did is extremely ambitious and requires a lot of money and work. NWN1 did those things very very well, but it's going to be difficult to see another game provide those things, especially since NWN1 did all that by only selling box copies and not subscriptions. I can imagine publishers giving it a go-ahead if there was a robust microtransaction model, but (1) that sounds crap for the consumer, and (2) D&D license itself is very hard to get at the moment for various weird reasons.

That's certainly one interesting side-effect. I know when I was young I only began to learn more about the oddities of how the industry is set up (and evolving) when Black Isle went under; nothing like your dream developer making profitable games then being killed off to make you wonder what the hell is going on.

Phone conferences with more than 2 people are the worst. It's about as productive as... as... *snore* Second game in the university social football league, lost 7-1 again. Basically you have well-built, tall, big guys who are also decent at the sport knock it around, push you over and slam it in, and then the rest of my team freezes and lets in far more than they should. Didn't help that I rolled the ball gently to our striker free in the six-yard box 3 times, and he proceeded to miss them all.

Crowdfunding will, most likely, begin very soon, before WL2 is done. They've said that while it's not ideal, this is because otherwise, all the people that worked on WL2 and did the pre-production / design / writing will have no work and nothing to pay them with, and will need to be laid off. Then, when Torment begins, they will likely have moved on, so they would need to hire some new people. It makes sense in that this is precisely why devs like Obsidian are pretty much negotiating with publishers all year round, so that you always have 2-3 projects at different stages to avoid firing people after each project. Whether they can communicate this good but complicated reasoning in their kickstarter pitch is the question....

Yeah, if it was a straight toss-up between GFWL and Steam, it's Steam any day. Thankfully Ubisoft hasn't been publishing anything good, so I've never touched Uplay.