Theobeau

I agree that you can't jump to conclusions. It's why I said in my posts: 1. There's also been claims that the game is already funded with private investment of at least 7 million. 2. It's been reported in wired quite a few months ago that he has the 7 million for this game already? My first point has the word 'claim'. It's not certain. My second point has a question mark at the end, asking a question? And I was referencing the wired news article from a few months ago. The 'evidence' doesn't look good. Mr RG (no more rat tail references, I'm feeling a little more generous tonight) touches on this in the latest RPS article. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/13/garriott-on-shroud-of-the-avatar-why-he-needs-ks/ In the earlier post, I made a Chris Roberts aside deliberately. Roberts was very open about seeking funding for Star Citizen from multiple sources in addition to two different crowd funding campaigns he described chasing funding from the traditional sources: industry and finances from memory. Broadly I have no problems with RG having already funded SoTA to X million but it is a little disingenous not to disclose this in his KS campaign but instead to draw heavily on gamer nostalgia for his classic series in the pitch and to imply that are funds are vital to completing some sort of spiritual successor to Ultima (I know he doesn't use the exact phrase but it is very heavily implied). I get the appeal of crowd sourced funding: for gaming companies they get great publicity, de facto pre-orders, probably attracts co-matching funds from traditional sources or can be used as collateral for loans and importantly charges no interest and has very little legal rights in case the project falls over. All I ask is that they are up front about it; more so for a man who is seriously independently wealthy as by not doing so, they appear dishonest and attract controversy. You make some good points and I can't disagree with everything you have mentioned, the reality for me is I feel we are not seeing the full picture around funding. But I suppose the other point is "does it matter". End of the day I want to play entertaining and old school PC based RPG. I don't mind if RC has already raised additional funding for this game. I will only contribute less than $50 anyway to this project. Some people will say it does matter as its the principle of being misinformed about the funds he needs. But in this case the principle isn't that important for me. I would be much more upset if this has happened during the PE and Torment KS Fair enough and agree to disagree about whether RG should have been more up-front about the nature of his funding for SoTA. What we can agree upon is that as fans of the golden age of cRPGs, we hope that the SoTA is a decent game (even it is a funny offline single player/MMO hybrid) and that PE and TToN kicks some serious gaming a*se!

I agree that you can't jump to conclusions. It's why I said in my posts: 1. There's also been claims that the game is already funded with private investment of at least 7 million. 2. It's been reported in wired quite a few months ago that he has the 7 million for this game already? My first point has the word 'claim'. It's not certain. My second point has a question mark at the end, asking a question? And I was referencing the wired news article from a few months ago. The 'evidence' doesn't look good. Mr RG (no more rat tail references, I'm feeling a little more generous tonight) touches on this in the latest RPS article. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/13/garriott-on-shroud-of-the-avatar-why-he-needs-ks/ In the earlier post, I made a Chris Roberts aside deliberately. Roberts was very open about seeking funding for Star Citizen from multiple sources in addition to two different crowd funding campaigns he described chasing funding from the traditional sources: industry and finances from memory. Broadly I have no problems with RG having already funded SoTA to X million but it is a little disingenous not to disclose this in his KS campaign but instead to draw heavily on gamer nostalgia for his classic series in the pitch and to imply that are funds are vital to completing some sort of spiritual successor to Ultima (I know he doesn't use the exact phrase but it is very heavily implied). I get the appeal of crowd sourced funding: for gaming companies they get great publicity, de facto pre-orders, probably attracts co-matching funds from traditional sources or can be used as collateral for loans and importantly charges no interest and has very little legal rights in case the project falls over. All I ask is that they are up front about it; more so for a man who is seriously independently wealthy as by not doing so, they appear dishonest and attract controversy.

Well, that's a bummer. While it was clear that something like this would happen at some point, I don't know why it had to be Garriott to corrupt the KS model. Forsaken virtues alright I did not know that he already has 7M for the damned project. This is going to make me re-think my pre-existing low tier pledge as there is nothing to feel guilty about! If anything, Mr. Rocking the Rat's tail should be a little ashamed that unlike his friend Chris Roberts, he didn't cough up this info as part of the KS campaign.

Great update with more fascinating insights about the making of a game. As a long time gamer but professionally completely outside of IT, the info about the mechanisms, logistics and philosophy of game design and game building are (almost) as exciting as details about PE itself. Hopefully after the darkness we get to see Chompy....is this something Dino related? Shame about the non animated waterfall however.....

Thanks for the link, which I hadn't come across before. Can't make informed judgements on 5 min of game play but.... shame that despite the KS pitch emphasising that players could chose to be whatever they wanted to be and Garriott decrying the health bar and numbers approach of most MMOs, that is what gets shown ! While still a little surprised at Garriott's chutzpah in pursuing crowd funding when he is worth multiple millions, am keeping an open mind about the game itself and the KS campaign.

For those interested, T:ToN's latest update just up. Mark Morgan's music is truly amazing; references PST but remains unique and further info about the tides. Lots of great info; sounds like they have a good KS game plan, no doubt learning from WL2 and PE as to how best engage with the fan base. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/posts

A bit meh with this KS as well but did the $10 nostalgia / guilt pledge (more nostalgia on my part). Came across this interesting interview from the KS backers comments thread; a Garriott launch interview that covers that curious hybrid MMO/offline cRPG model that he is using for the game http://sota.ultimacodex.com/interview-with-richard-garriott/ Will consider pledging up to a digital copy if the updates point to a decent single player experience. I also wonder whether Garriott saw the phenomenal success of Torment and decided to launch his KS and ride in its slipstream. That or he's saving up for his next adventure. After all, don't you know that space travel has gone up in price since 2008 ? Edit: Garriott really rocks that rat's tail. He even wore it during his space adventures ! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garriott#Spaceflight

Misc thoughts about a very exciting KS. Managed to grab one of those limited number tiers early and have been mesmerised watching the pledge count climbing at an astounding rate. Is 2M in 2 days as much as a record as 1M in 7 hrs? More meat from the recent updates; Colin McComb's most recent update was interesting and helped add flesh to the themes of the up and coming game. Fargo's part of the initial pitch was great; he has a gift for being the straight man and that kid who plays the Metric Games CEO is gold. However his insights about the challenges of looking for funding and the business model of small-med game firms was fascinating. This whole KS process has really informed the gaming community about the unique difficulties of the industry and explains why big gaming studios spend millions and still turn out dreck a la Colonial Marine: Aliens. Back to watching the money trial while waiting for the next update. Haven't been this excited about a KS since, well Project Eternity (and still holding out for MCA as a stretch goal!)

Like Humanoid above, I woke up to find that the damned thing was almost fully funded and the early tiers mostly gone. Made a decision to grab that collector's box and lo and behold, I check after work to find that they are all gone as well. The KS has gone swimmingly and the launch vid was surprisingly insightful (well, when it came to finance and the game industry). Roll on the Torment KS campaign!

Very interesting update and as one of many huge fans of PST, glad to see the cross promotion of the next cRPG spiritual successor. Am very interested to check out the details of the Torment: Tides of Numenera KS. BTW: I know MCA isn't listed as being involved in the TToN team but given his deep links to Torment, I won't be surprised to see him turning up as a stretch goal in the vein of PE's Mr. Ziets.

Late to this update and forum thread but both were very informative. Range of opinions about the value of engagement zones and slamming books. Personally, I find the latter quite novel (did someone do that already?!); The idea of b***h slapping enemies with a really, really heavy book is so amusing that I'm thinking hard about a mage for the first playthrough. One idea: perhaps damage could be scaled by the number and level of spells in the book? After all it hurts much, much more to be hit with a phone book than with a copy of Miffy goes to School and trust me, I speak from experience!

Lurking around -> Yes Planning on supporting T:ToN (that abbreviation doesn't quite fly off as easily as PST) -> Yes but will wait for more details rather than jumping in at the opening bell.

This is the one post where a truer title has never been written. I found both the Pretty and Technical both equally fascinating Looking forward to the next update Team PE!

Great update, always good to hear from Ziets who got a stretch goal all to himself. I wonder whether the Orlan is more in the style of Benedict Cumberbatch / Sherlock or Johnny Miller / Elementary ? Who knows perhaps I got it wrong and it is more Lucy Liu / Dr. Joan Watson!

Before this thread, I didn't know about the recent Fargo interview so thanks to the posters for for linking it. Like many here, a huge PST fan and was initially very intrigued and a little concerned by the contradictory and incomplete rumours swirling around that the game was going to be revived. After reading the article I'm reassured that Fargo has acknowledged the concerns of term PST fans, has stated that he is planning to get WL2 more "out there" before switching focus to the new game and that he is aware of the suspicions among fans that devs are over reliant on Kickstarter to fund their projects (looking at some famous Brit developers here....) Having done a bit of reading of the Numenera setting, it does sound like an idea setting for a in depth cRPG exploration of deeper philosophical themes relating to our purpose and existence. Whether such a game needs to fall under the rubric of a Torment game is still unclear to me. It is though Planescape Torment is shorthand for a a cRPG experience that is well written, deeply character driven and philosophically and intellectually dense. Looking as it took me some 20 secs to type it out (!) I guess I can understand why it is easier to say (and market) such a title as "the spiritual successor to Planescape Torment". As long as the new title doesn't actually devalue the original experience by over-doing the links to the original or overusing cliched references, call-outs (anyone see a Morte-style wise-cracking companion here) or easter eggs than I'll happily get involved with the inevitable KS project. A case of watch this space.....

Always great to read updates with Mr. Bremerkamp's CV reading like a list of the some the best cRPGs of recent times though I'm sure some would argue against some of them. Looking forward to the next update from our favourite heavily tattooed developer. Cheers

Great to hear that the PE teams have finally left their elf/ dwarf/ inset favourite fantasy race -homes and are heading back to the world of PE. I also hope JE Sawyer has recovered what whatever terrible illness he caught though does it not also look like the day after a really, really heavy NYE bash at someone's elfhome?! Finally, in the style of the post....... Without further ado, adieu !

Thanks for the detailed update; a unique take on inventory / wgt restrictions that managed to put together a limited inventory without restricting a player's wish to smash every barrel or crate and rip apart every satchel or Hessian sack in order to make sure that they get every damned copper piece of stuff out there in Eternity-world I also like the potential with the 4 main classes; combining active and passive abilities + skills + feats means a lot of potential for customising and trying out different builds. However as a player who sometimes doesn't want to have to plan out his character's advancement tree to the nth degree, I hope that the "default" options don't produce too nerfed PCs. I hope the OBS team enjoy their well deserved elfhome time (though aren't there devs who are more dwarf or even Aumaua -home people?)

Downloaded GOG versions of PST and the BG series and had great fun playing modded versions of the game. As an aside, I'm sure people have already posted about BGEE vs. modded BG Trilogy Despite putting in some 350hrs into the game already, planning will head back to the Mojave over Christmas. Nothing to get one into the holiday spirit more than battling Alpha Deathclaws in an abandoned mining pit. However at the moment, the recent Omega DLC was enough to lure me back into the world of (Fem) Shepard. If (that's a big IF) you can put the god awful ending to the back of your mind, there is quite a lot to like in the early and middle phases of the game. However, when that Cereal Killer turns up in his tricked up helicopter, you know that the good times are coming to an end, though you get a choice of red, blue or green.

I especially liked the cameos from the character artists: the hard core Russian and his Chinese indentured servant. Hopefully we'll get more of the Dimitri and James show next time!

Only came across this series of posts today. To saw that I'm very intrigued by the return of PST, albeit no longer wearing the clothes of Planescape, would be seriously underplaying how excited I was upon hearing the news. The original game still means a lot to me and IMHO, is the exemplar of how computer games, among all the forms of artistic expression/entertainment, are uniquely placed to have the viewer (player) immerse themselves into a fictional life and by doing so, learn something of a wider truth and of themselves. Onto the possibility of a new Torment game itself, Brian Fargo's recent comments suggest that the game may be backed by inXile, which should make it more likely to move to the next stage....any takers for a new Kickstarter in early 2013?!

A backer of the recently successfully funded Sui Generis; like the poster above, and for similar reasons, backing the Larry Elmore project http://www.kickstart...-elmore-artbook. For the KS fans among us, came across this interesting article from Rock, Paper, Shotgun that examines the success rates of recent KS gaming projects. http://www.rockpaper...e-are-they-now/ The conclusions are not surprising but still sobering. On a positive note, PE and OBS come out quite well.

As an early backer of this project, great to see that it managed to (just) squeeze over the threshold to get funded. In the end, a close run thing. As an even earlier backer of PE, I was chuffed to see that OBS seemed to have made a (probable) sizeable contribution to the late push. Kudos to Obsidian (and Brian Fargo) for following up on their stated commitment to support other game designers on Kickstarter!