Zoraptor

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.

I'd say the main reason is that she was utterly unapologetic about the impact of her policies and seemed to bask and take pride in the damage she did to lives. To some of course that means strong leadership in the face of the consequences of necessary policies; to others it means that she celebrated making them unemployed and- literally- ruining their lives. Gutting a town and instantly making half or more of its population unemployed, then going on the telly to pat yourself on the back for doing so is not going to endear her to those in that town, and they will remember. And there are other specific issues too, like her shameful handling of Hillsborough though she was far from alone in that clusterasterisk of incompetence and malfeasance.

Well yeah, completely unreasonable that having dlc, MP, mods and patches patches patches stuck behind a drm wall for something advertised from the start as 'drm free' upsets people. They're so unreasonable what with expecting not to receive a gimped, potentially permanently broken and always second string version having contributed in some cases large amounts. ... And yet, freeware- freeware- somehow manages to distribute updates without Uncle Gabe leaning over their shoulder, and mods have been distributed without Steam doing a Clippy impersonation for, well, as long as they've been around. I'm fairly sure Thief didn't use steam in 1998, for example. It's a complete bullasterisk justification that doesn't stand so much a smidgeon of critical examination. Ye gods I've never been so glad* I didn't contribute a cent to these sophist shylocks. *slight exaggeration, maybe

Augusto Pinochet. PW Botha. Saddam Hussein. What do I win? (And I don't even agree that Thatcher would have supported Hitler/ Musso. Churchill, who was outright fascist in many respects like gassing Iraqi's, white man's burden, exploitation etc was stridently anti-fascist after all and did not believe in banding together with Uncle A to fight Uncle J. But Thatcher was an absolutely typical western hypocrite 'democrat', totalitarianism was AOK, fine, brilliant even, so long as it was her friends doing the murder, torture and suppression rather than her enemies.)

I mainly just find their method of arguing objectionable. If you're going to characterise everyone who disagrees with you as- essentially- not being in good faith disagreement, which is what Walker did, then you have crossed the line from simply arguing, or putting forward a position, to pontificating, lecturing and demonising your opponents. "Shut up you sexist trolling ignoramuses" is not materially better than "shut up you white knighting impression seeking mangina", which is basically what he accuses those who disagree with him of saying. That is an exceptionally bad approach to take if you're actually trying to convince people of something as opposed to just shouting at people from the top of a soapbox. Frankly though I think that RPS have done an exceptionally good job at trivialising the issue. The wage gaps in gaming issue is worthy of discussion as people should, fundamentally, get equal pay for the same job no matter their sex/ colour/ creed/ whatever. But something like going off the deep end at TWitcher 2's prologue boobies is nothing but trivialisation, if Aryan is alive he gets tortured instead and it is, contextually, appropriate anyway. It's like complaining that having rapine in Game of Thrones is sexist, it isn't, it happened historically and still happens in the real world, burying that under a politically correct blanket is not something that should happen because some middle class bleeding hearts from Chipping Norton get upset at it, if anything it illuminates the mistreatment of women.

I think the reaction that Anita received to her video is another attempt to do something like this I'd agree with that, certainly. I wouldn't have found her project worth funding personally, but trying to bully her out of it was utterly disgraceful let alone the manner in which some tried to do it, and certainly an attempt at censorship and discouragement of others. On RPS though, I'm about as liberal as they come and if they're managing to alienate me on something like this they must be doing something very very wrong indeed. I think Mr Walker needs to take a look at himself and his website rather more as to why the effect has been so divisive.

I think you're ignoring the issue of self censorship, where the pressure of an issue is sufficient to ensure censorship without there being any formal process involved. Something like depicting Mohammed is perfectly legal in most western countries but happens very rarely even when it would be contextually fine- in Crusader Kings 2 you can go back to see Mohammed's portrait and it is the only one in the whole game that is obscured, the issue of South Park/ Comedy Central censoring similarly against the wishes of the people making the program etc. There doesn't have to be or be an attempt to create legislation or other regulation to impose censorship if you can make people impose it- voluntarily or involuntarily- on themselves.