Zoraptor

I don't particularly dislike the idea of new JA games without ex-SirTech input- and they sound a lot better than BiA- but I am not very likely at all to contribute. The Shadowrun thing has soured me towards any publisher influenced KS, I'm not particularly keen on BitComposer using KS as funding for their IPs (or buying up stuff post KS really, though I'm a lot less negative on that front; it's free and risk free money for them so understandable they try it on) and I'm not particularly keen on BC after their attempt to gazump the rights to Stalker- along with accusations they hadn't paid due royalties for CoP. Does make me wonder if it was BitComposer who approached Feargus about doing a kickstarter for them prior to P: E

Yep, same as Bioshock Original; set in a decaying underwater city and there's zero swimming or pretty much anything else involving water, they show big, uh, surfacescrapers in the cutscenes/ waterboxes but the levels are pretty much all standard flat sprawling x/y levels. It's very pretty and has very good art direction, but after a while plausibility/ belief suspension starts fraying badly and the whole thing ends up feeling, well, shallow and, um, lacking in depth. In some ways that (and the plotting) is actually worse than the alternative as it reminds you that it could have been genuinely excellent, but isn't. It's rather like going to a Michelin starred restaurant and being served poisson et frites. It may be dressed up nicely and cost a lot to make, and even tastes nice enough really, but it is, at heart, just more fish and chips.

I believe the overemphasis on Cristopher Ecclestone's gurning is also lamented - at considerable length - by Armando Ianucci. From the description and as Karen Gillen ain't middle aged it must have been Tate/ Tennant rather than Ecclestone- who did a pretty decent job considering every episode of his except those with gasmasks was terrible. Especially those with fart jokes and laughable green aliens. My main problem with nuWho was Russel T Davies' I think, more deus ex via 'Power of Love' than Frankie Goes to Hollywood's third most well known song. For both his run and Moffat's the best episodes have been from independent writers rather than the core team, ironically most of the early ones from Moffat himself (saw The Girl in the Fireplace recently and noted the parallels to the later Pond storyline) but the Curtis and Gaiman eps from the Smith (who I like a lot as the Doctor) era were my favourites. And tangentially related, there's a Blake's 7 remake that has been approved for Syfy. Can't say I'm overly enthused at what I've heard of it but since I had Avon as my avatar for ages pre Macho Man I feel obligated to mention it.

That's the problem with all the Bioshock games, and to an extent System Shock 2 as well. I don't have much of a problem with Ken Levine as a writer as he's far better than most writing for video games but he does have rather a tendency to end up ultimately disappointing, even if it's mainly disappointment that it 'should have ended up better than it did' rather than it being bad as an absolute. But gameplay wise they're the equivalent of Bethesda for story- heaps of options heaps of breadth, but zero depth.

I've got no problems at all with how Eisenwald handled things, and them I would definitely have contributed to if the International Date Line wasn't difficult (in fact they're the main reason why I don't wait to the last day to contribute any more). Any [contributor] who doesn't, er, expect unexpected problems is a bit naive, so long as they're honest about it it's fine. Some using KS are a bit inured to the old/ standard publisher style ways of doing things though- something that does not work well if your model relies mainly on goodwill.

The Bam (which is an awesome name for a city) quake killed tens of thousands, and ruined a rather nice mud brick castle rather badly. I think only Haiti or Sumatra (indirectly) in the last decade or so were definitely worse in terms of casualties.

There isn't much offensive in the thread, IIRC- though given the subject of the game there's a fair bit of Edginess whenever it comes up- mainly there was a very long, very pointless and very boring back and forth immediately prior. I've regularly gone for digital tier rewards on a 4GB monthly plan, so I pretty much regard anything contributed as a gift, which I may get reciprocated at some vague point in the future. A lot of people contribute to such things on the principle of the matter though, whether it be no publishers, DRM free or whatever and they will be upset if their principles get betrayed. If I'd contributed to Expeditions I'd probably be peeved mightily at the delay and the reasons for it, and be very suspicious of the 'unsolicited' addition of MP; but I don't fundamentally care about using BC to get onto Steam (so long as it doesn't mean Everyone Gets to Benefit!!!, I think at this point everyone understands wanting to circumvent the Greenlight Lottery) and I'm willing to cut them some slack on the other issues. OTOH, I'd want a refund from HBS, as I don't see them as having either much integrity or much competence by this point.

Some interesting discussion at the Codex on kickstarter related issues. It's primarily related to Expeditions: Conquistador and them picking up BitComposter as a publisher but it is worth a read, features Vault Dweller, someone from LoEisenwald and a guy from BitComposer on his own time. Their 'Kickstarter Drama' news thread is also worth a read, though much of it has been more or less covered in the Shadowrun thread here. ***For anyone unfamiliar with the Codex be aware that there may be bad language and people who make you feel stupid andor despair for the future of the human race. Discretion and an ability not to Take Things Too Seriously always advised*** though the linked thread is almost entirely fine on those regards. [edit: specifically, go forward in the pages from the linked p25 to avoid any tardery]

I certainly won't dispute that the 7 million figure was laughable, there was a time when TR was a genuinely AAA+ property and might realistically have got those numbers but those days are long gone. Their expectations seem to be all over the place though, both SD and Hitman 'failed' as well, DXHR (which had 4+ years development, a new studio etc etc) supposedly did OK without actually selling that well, and DS3 met expectations on a lower budget. For TR specifically there might be some baggage wrt to it being originally a part of Eidos, though that would be true for DXHR as well- and the problems with the bread and butter FF franchise can hardly help so there may be some wishful thinking involved in finding a replacement/ backup.

Yeah, there are two issues: Did TR make money in an isolated sense? and Did TR make the money it needed to make? We know the answer to the second question, the first would be conjecture. The first is to an extent irrelevant though- despite me bemoaning it being a 'failure' despite 3.4 million sales- as TR is part of Squenidos and has to exist that way until sold off or the company fails. If they need it to sell 7 million copies, even with the proviso that that is a silly number based on a 'value' for TR that has been gone for years, then half of that is a 'failure' even if in isolation it made money.

They're at least partially publicly listed though, aren't they? They took over a company (Optimus?) specifically to get on the Polish stock exchange and a quick check suggests they have shares for sale.

Tomb Raider sold 3 million+ copies though, didn't it? In that case it's rather difficult to characterise that as 'failure', there aren't many games ever that have sold better. The failure part has to be the expectations and cost control that mean that 3 million+ is not profitable, else 99% of all games ever made are failures and there are a handful of successes; Assassin's Creed/ BF/ CoD/ Diablocraft/ Skyrim/ GTA etc. That fundamentally cannot be a sustainable situation. Either argument is a bit circular (we need to spend more to compete, and get more sales! We need to spend less, to budget against lower sales numbers!) though.

Yeah, Morrowind (which I quite like otherwise) was terrible in its implementation, shame that Bethesda made such a cop out 'fixing' the problem though. I don't really have a preference for any of those types except as above, they all can work well in different situations. As with most things the good or bad is mostly in the implementation, how well, how consistently and how appropriately it is handled.

Clearly the game name needs to be changed to Torment: Numenera Numenity then; publisher backed market research suggests that's a far better name. The sequel can be called Torment: Numenera 2 though.

They're less complicated if using checkpoints, as there are fewer coordinates and they don't need things like AI states and positions to be taken into account. As a consequence they're also (potentially a lot) smaller in terms of memory requirements. It's pretty weak reasoning though- you'd hope that sort of attitude was not applied elsewhere.

They should have dressed up the checkpoint system as being a defence against save scumming, really.

If you want a rogue specifically for the trap skills Safiya's familiar can detrap etc and you can pick a different class. Having said that, I played a rogue(/swashbuckler, iirc) last time without any problems.

I don't think it actually matters much whether they asked permission beforehand to not (I read strong implication that they wrote DRM free and then had to go to MS, but it ain't conclusive either way and they managed to imply that the drm free version would not get patches previously, so it's 100% hmm), in either case MS is not the villain as they agreed to varying the contract when they didn't have to- it only determines what level of blame HBS bears. Even leaving that question aside completely they still had terrible communication, and their "woohoo, you're all going to benefit from STEEEEEEEAM!!!" approach was spectacularly ill advised in the circumstances and betrayed a fundamental misunderstanding of something like KS where funding is determined to a large extent by perceived honesty, and goodwill, rather than being a standard format publisher style preorder. And I still wonder what on earth they would have done had they not got onto steam via the magical/ arbitrary Greenlight detour system. Go to MS for another variance? Use SecuROM/ Live/ "Originworks"?

Well, that would require a final approval clause or similar, if DRM wasn't spelt out. That is still both something that should have been mentioned and something where they should have sought clarification before making their offer. No one forced them to say 'DRM free', they chose to do it. I wouldn't call it malice by MS, they could have sat on the licence and they're within their rights to make whatever stipulations they like when licensing. That's true for anyone- if Valve were to licence Half Life or one of their other properties I'd fully expect them to write steam integration into the contract, even if it were for a KS. That is an inherent factor when it comes to using licensed properties, and there is no evidence that MS is being unreasonable here, quite the opposite given that their policy has been waived at least partly. OTOH I find it very difficult to envisage a situation where Harebrained are not either incompetent (not reading their contract properly) or malicious (reading it properly but not being upfront about it). Neither alternative is very edifying.

I do find the parallels between the mines in the 80's and the banks today rather amusing. The Tories have nationalised- effectively or literally- a bunch of banks, so in 30 years and with all their ideological shouting all they've really done is go from subsidising loss making mines to subsidising loss making banks, and those banks held the government to ransom every bit as much as the NUM did in its heyday, and the Tories baulk at anything which can hurt them just as much as pre 79 parties baulked at taking on the unions. Plus ça change... We had almost exactly the same process happen here from 1984 on. It was nowhere near as confrontational, probably because most of it was done by the Labour Party and there was a general acceptance that things Had To Change even amongst those effected.

Hah! One of the biggest news stories over here in the last week is this about tender Danish sensibilities being offended by large erect phalluses in poor provincial Nyoo Zillund. Which is a wonderful place to visit for a summer holiday, even if our summer has just finished and we aren't in Europe.

Other way around, I would think. Else there's no point for MS in licensing it and it might as well stay in the IP vault or be sold outright. I agree- I don't like steam, but I didn't complain about something like Carmaggedon when it was steam key only; nor PE, except for saying I wouldn't contribute to a steam only project. Because both were honest about it. This requirement* is clearly something that was written into their contract and they were- or should have been- aware of at the time of the KS but told nobody about. Had they done so the issue would not have come up at all, in some ways this explanation is actually worse than the alternative. Not to mention what would have happened had they not got onto steam. *Which is interesting in itself, I guess it explains why AOE2HD won't be on GOG and makes it unlikely that any MS stuff ever will be.

Reading the Dailyfail- even just one article- gives you more than the WHO approved amount of outrage for a whole month, let alone a day.

"Frankly, they give the impression of having burned through their money and being in a bit of a panic about it" sums it up, pretty much. The most charitable take on it is that they bit off more than they can chew and are now trying to offload as much work and responsibility on others as possible and do everything with absolute minimum effort and cost. I'd tend to think that their save game statements also illustrate this, making save games is hard!!!- who would have guessed? As such having a system which is basically "Looks like you want to do dlc? We can help with that! Looks like you want to patch? We can help with that! :)" is something they would leap at. Nevertheless, they went into the KS promising DRM free and got a lot more than they asked for too, as such I have no sympathy for them whatsoever. I can speculate on Valve's own approach to things and provide evidence for why I think that way if you wish, but that would probably be better in the Steam Sux/Roxxor! thread.

I never got an email about it, but saw the survey at their forums. The response was a perfect storm of a not particularly well received game, people who think GOG == Good Old Games and a pretty underwhelming dlc for the cost of a standard GOG game. I don't have any problems with it personally, doesn't effect me and it isn't being imposed by fiat on anyone. In any case it's a world away from collecting money from people on the understanding of a game being DRM free then springing surprise! DRM on them if they want a functional game at the end. ... Origin and Uplay are marketplaces too, so's GOG etc etc. Steam being a marketplace is irrelevant. 90% of the costs of such a system are associated with setting it up, which they already have. If you have the DB already it's- literally- adding lines to the records to say which dlc is purchased, and if you have a preorder system that already generates records then you have something that can generate dlc records as well. This is basic DB functionality, the sort of thing every online business has to do- and you know what? Even getting it outsourced is cheaper than Valve's 30% cut is. Claiming it cannot be done without help from Uncle Gabe is rubbish, plain and simple. Shonky reasoning made shonkier by their 'pound of flesh' lawyerism; and sadly there's unlikely to be a 'haha, no blood stipulated- sucka!' moment in this story. Frankly, they give the impression of having burned through their money and being in a bit of a panic about it. God knows what their state would be if they'd only scraped over their target.