Pop

Success in a KS debut is all about a good pitch (and remember that Ferg[?] recently gave big talks on how to make a pitch, they do this for a living). At the least they should have concept art and a lot of definite information about what the game is going to be and what's going to be cool about it. Gameplay vids, even in alpha, would be good as well. Beyond that, enticing backer rewards, especially at the mid-levels ($30-75), helps quite a bit. T-shirts and forum badges won't do it. In-game acknowledgement of high-level backers (ala Wasteland 2's monuments) seems to be popular, but I know Avellone has expressed serious reservations about that practice.

If this is a kickstarter project, then we should expect it to go up on the site on Friday. Have some cash set aside y'all

Ahhh, teasing Sawyer, how I've missed u Aliens desktop shot never forget

They finally got him

By some accounts the canceled Defiance project Sawyer headed up was vital to Obsidian's solvency. If that is the case, they'd be looking for a new gig on short notice. DS3 was made quickly and competently with relatively little publisher investment, and turned a tidy profit because of it. Seems likely that Squeenix was happy enough with how it turned out to take our guys on again for DS4. I'm not really thrilled with the mythology / world of DS (or Wheel of Time, for that matter) but I'll buy it, and Obsidian will continue to kick with (hopefully) another technically sound release and a healthy, happy dev-publisher relationship.

via Avellone's Twitter account:

OT - Obsidian were approached for an Ultima game 5-6 years ago. Apparently that was common knowledge? I had no idea. But in any case, probably not this thing.

I'm interested in this, but I'm a bit confuses as apparently everyone is. We make a fantasy character for our FO game, yes?

Stalker 2 is dead, on account of IP loss. It's too bad, the setting was really cool. We'll have a really bad F2P MMO as a consolation prize, at least.

So I guess this as good a place as any to post this (though an official Obsidz blog post could come up soonish) - I was writing a Van Buren PbP game and sent Chris Avellone a bunch of questions, and he answered them for me! So here they are.

I'm pretty sure I got one already, from PAX East some years back I've got another few hundred stashed away for the inevitable Obsidian project.

They've got T. Cain and Sawyer, who are both hardcore rules guys. I'm sure they'll come up with something.

Eh, **** it, $75 goes up to $250

I'd say PbP is much easier on folks if they're not so much into improvising. They can get much more "in-character" when they have time to plan out their posts and actions. You can round robin it (take turns, basically) but that rarely ever keeps for long. And really, with time zone differences, there are few good choices beyond it.

As an addendum, if you're going PbP, try using http://www.rptools.net/ and http://rolz.org/, both of which are free, the former of which allows for fairly sophisticated tactical combat, at least with the right GM initiative. I know people who run X-Com games on it. For my game I just use it as a basic grid / token system for basic combat. Basic.

Also if you guys were planning on a VB run, you might want to wait a few weeks / months, there should be a blog post coming down the pipe on this very site that could illuminate some things

Fwiw, I would recommend not relying on IRC. It works smashingly for some things (combat, etc) but it amplifies the problems that PnP has when you're actually doing it in the real world - namely, needing to have everyone together at once. Most PnP games die before they're completed, that is the rule, it's just a fact of life. But if you're setting a time when people MUST be available, your game will die before it gets fun. Not to toot my own horn, but I've been running a Van Buren(ish) PbP game (or "Play by Post", on a message board) for awhile. PbP is easier to organize (and soooooooooo much better for record-keeping) but it is slow as hell - The Prologue in Tibbets was basically 4 months of playtime. But if you have a solid cast of regulars on a forum such as this one, and a lot of patience, it can work.

Gonna get some of that sweet action

Obviously. If that's a big deal to you, you can renege on your pledge before the deadline in the event of the $2.1 million benchmark not being in sight. I guess I'm throwing in an extra $50.

No wait, the UE3 project has to the XBLA title, since it appears work stopped on it around April '11 I just don't know what is going on here

So the UE3 game, whatever it is, bore a tech demo, which means... it's not the downloadable title (presumably because Obsidz was aiming for a publisher-free route that wouldn't require a tech demonstration)? Did we ever figure out if that was Project Virginia or something yet to be killed? Is it something they've still got in the cards?

Fixed the ending

Mitsoda et al are priming Dead State for the Kickstarter treatment. On the one hand, Mitsoda, and the absolute plum combination of premise and system make me want to pledge a good amount of money. On the other hand, I would really rather not give Codex-related entities any money at all, if I could help it. I'll probably just settle on a low tier as compromise.

Kotaku idly speculates that Avellone's overtures toward a Kickstarter gave Microsoft cold feet.