duskwind

Another way of looking at it is it needs to make US$216k in a week, which is less than 15% of what Project Eternity made in its last week. Not a ridiculous amount, it just needs exposure.

And it's currently free on GOG.

Anyone who liked Consortium should sign up for their Thunderclap campaign - their kickstarter needs the boost. NB Thunderclap does let you customise the message when you click Support, so you're not stuck with their wording; just keep the hashtag and url, and it just takes a few seconds to do. Their Diplomacy and the Spoken Word update is worth a look if you're not convinced yet.

72% funded and three days to go...

I think the problem is more that Torment (and to a lesser extend Shroud of the Avatar) did attract so much cash, in the same month. So there's not much left in people's budgets for Divinity, no matter how appealing it might be.

Consortium has 13 hours left to earn $6k to achieve its final (announced) stretch goal. Looks like an intriguing game, an RPG in a restricted setting that allows all the NPCs to be developed characters, instead of the usual dozens of generic villagers wandering around who can't be interacted with.

No, it's not. "we were able to successfully negotiate an exception with Microsoft for us to provide our Backers with a DRM-free version of the Kickstarter rewards" - DLC is irrelevant, MS wanted DRM on everything.

No, they didn't. They either assumed there was no reason not to offer DRM-free (an entirely reasonable assumption on the face of it), negotiated it before or during the Kickstarter (in which case MS's position makes no sense whatsoever), or said DRM-free in the full knowledge that it was in violation of their license (which would be insane). The first option is the only one that makes any kind of sense (which doesn't necessarily mean it's the truth, but it is by far the most reasonable assumption). Why would they think they'd need to ask permission? They're the ones developing the game, they own the game; they simply paid MS for the rights to use some IP. It defies belief that they signed any contract explicitly mentioning a DRM requirement and failed to notice; it seems far more plausible that MS's ability to require DRM is legally complex and indirect. And Microsoft is under no obligation to force them to use DRM, whatever the contract says; they're choosing to do so. MS are not the good guys here! That's certainly true. There are plenty of DRM options other than Steam.

From memory of what? As far as I'm aware there's been no mention anywhere of asking for exemptions before the latest update, and that says nothing about during the Kickstarter.

It does not explicitly say when they asked, and "This didn’t come up earlier" strongly implies that they didn't know till after the conclusion of the kickstarter. It would be quite a stretch to read it as saying they asked for the exemption before the Kickstarter; apart from anything else, why would MS grant such an exemption in advance? Interpretation of contracts can be a very complex matter.

It doesn't say they knew all along, though; I would expect that Microsoft contacted them after the kickstarter saying "what's all this about DRM-free versions of the game? You can't do that!" "But there's nothing about DRM in the contract!" "Ah, but [500 pages of legal mumbo jumbo]." "Oh... but we've already promised DRM-free to all our backers!" "Oh, alright, we'll let you fulfil the letter of that promise, but not a byte more."

It seems highly unlikely that it actually said "you have the right to make a game using Shadowrun IP, but must not release it without DRM" in so many words. Microsoft's ability to insist on DRM is far more probably granted by some obscure term of the license that doesn't directly reference DRM at all.

The latest update from Bloom has some interesting clarification on how the roleplaying aspect of the game will work. If you think the game looks worthwhile, even one dollar will help.

Especially this version of Tetris. Though is pretty cool.

Bittorrent?

I'm expecting Eternity to be more like Baldur's Gate; they're different styles of game, not just different in quality.

Based on how other successful rpg kickstarters have done in their last 17 days, the homestead is a given and traits and talents are quite achievable. And I think a much bigger than average final surge is possible, once people have had a couple of weeks to recover from Torment and Shroud, and also high PayPal numbers if they keep that open into next month.

But it still only says "My goal is to raise $829 to cover the cost of RPG Camp" and "any extra toward a laptop". The camp is only running for the one week. So that's a very expensive laptop, even with 5% taken out.

I'm planning to play with my same-gender partner (the two-player option is the most exciting aspect of the game, IMAO) and getting to choose both our characters' genders is a definite bonus. The interaction between the characters is supposed to be very flexible anyway, so impact on storytelling should be negligible.

The idea is to encourage backers to promote the game more widely, not just increase their own pledges, which does mean more total cash in the end.

Old or not, it's still true. And half the WL2 team have finished their part of the job, so without Torment they'd have nothing to do for the next half a year.

Every potential thing to be included in the game costs money to implement; they can't afford to include all the good ideas if they don't get enough funding to pay for them.

They have to have something worth stretching for at the upper limits of what might be attainable...

Pessimists! It's virtually at $3.5m now with paypal included, and will be well past it when I wake up tomorrow. For a final total as low as $3.6m, it would have to earn less in the last 64 hours combined than it did today, which seems rather implausible.

Actually a male artist, just a very feminine one. But talented either way; Bloom deserves more support.