Katarack21

They seem to be under the impression that review copies of an essentially unfinished build are some sort of special privilege that press people are getting and Backers *should* be getting. They are wrong.

Refinement over the last couple days: My character will be a polite, kind, courteous Orlan who is also viciously, brutally pragmatic and something of an untrustworthy snake. He is fleeing from his past as a slave in Old Vailla, and has went somewhat crazy and a little native due to a combination of his new found freedom, the wild and untamed nature of the culture in the Dyrwood, and his own mental anguish from his past.

Oh not this again Go read the Kickstarter FAQ. We are actually entitled to what was promised or a full refund. What's happening here is people who did not necessarily back are going to get access before us. What's happening here is a completely normal and typical game release for a major project from a well-known studio. Nothing more, nothing less.

Wish I had any talent at all in this regard. I'd love a heavily scarred, wild-eyed Orlan portrait to use for my main playthrough. :-D

The distinction is important in this case because he used the 4 million in sales as a way to justify his desire to get the game early via an argument that the press won't generate that 4 million in sales. The fact that they aren't sales is vital to understanding the process and the reasoning behind these decisions; that 4 million dollars was the money that was used to make the game, not money generated by sales of the game. The sales of the game and the money generated by that will, in large part, dictate whether this game is a "success" and therefore whether future games of this type are more or less likely to be made. It's actually rather important, because as his posts indicate misunderstanding what this is and what this means can have a large impact on the the opinions and attitudes regarding what's happening, which can then impact future Kickstarter funding, the sales of this game, etc. etc.

Just because people use the words buying and selling doesn't mean that what they are doing is actually buying and selling; people use words loosely because it's convenient, not because they care deeply about accuracy, and this is what causes language drift over time. Kickstarter similar set ups are a form of investment, not of purchase; thinking it's a sale doesn't make it so.

Guaranteed all these twitchers and youtubers combined will never come close to generating 4 million in sales like us backers did. There were no sales. You didn't buy a product. You donated to a company and they rewarded you with a copy of their product; that's it. There was no buying/selling occurring. I bet that'll hold up in court. "I wasn't paying for sex, your honor, I donated money to her non-profit and she rewarded me with services rendered." Not the same thing at all. There's a clear legal set up for crowdfunding that I just explained. There are no sales on Kickstarter. Never have been.

You should judge the arguments, not who they come from. Otherwise it's just snobbery. King, Daniel, Pual Delfabbro and Mark Griffiths. "Video Game Structural Characteristics: A New Psychological Taxonomy." International Journal of Mental Health Addiction. 2010. Achievements fall under "winning & losing conditions" in the frame work developed by R.T.A. Wood et al to discuss videogame addiction in their paper The structural characteristics of video games: a psycho-structural analysis. Wood argued that the human brain is conditioned to maximise wins and minimise losses. Weinstein, Aviv Malkiel. "Computer and Video Game Addiction -- A comparison between Game Users and Non-Game Users". The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse. 2010. Dr Weinstein, of Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem and the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv, writes a paper which deals with, amongst other things, a dopamine trial to test dopamine levels in gamers who have no prior traditional addiction versus those who have had addictions to ecstasy. The game he selected for the trial was MotoGP published by THQ, which has no zynga style exploitive microtransactions, nor traditional gambling systems like betting. While not mentioning achievements, it is clear by his research that people do get chemical carrots, so to speak, from playing traditional style video games. So to reiterate, you're wrong. Achievements are designed to motivate players to accomplish them and they do so by exploiting a person's psychology and physiology. And you're wrong to call out an article on IGN as illegitimate or scientifically unsound because of the source. Video games websites are chalk full of people who are interested in games and having university degrees. edit: And as I just dug through about 60 pages of journal articles to prove a point that never should have been needed to be made in the first place, no, I'm not interested in continuing this conversation. None of those things you just quoted said *ANYTHING* about achievements. You're making big logical leaps from typical reward/loss scenarios that exist in any and every game since the beginning of mankind to addictive brain-trigger engineering through the use of achievements based on no scientific argument that I've seen.

Guaranteed all these twitchers and youtubers combined will never come close to generating 4 million in sales like us backers did. There were no sales. You didn't buy a product. You donated to a company and they rewarded you with a copy of their product; that's it. There was no buying/selling occurring.

I bought both in the store and played them patch-free and never had a single issue with the playing of the game. There were some mechanics problems, etc; but the games weren't buggy in the same sense as KOTOR 2 or VtM:B. Both games were perfectly playable and perfectly stable all the way through without fail; they operated as intended, for me at least--nor did I ever hear about any kind of widespread playability problems or buggines like you constantly hear about with things like NWN 2 or Pools of Radiance.

BG and BG2 had no problems at launch and also became classics. It's hard to predict, really; predicting what game is going to stand the test of time and which are going to disappear in four years is more-or-less a game of chance. My point is that while I have very high hopes and feel pretty good about this game, Obsidian's history still makes me a little bit wary.

Obsidian is doing normal, completely typical marketing for the normal, completely typical release of a high-value high-publicity game on which the continued existence of their company might very well depend.

Is it the 23rd? Is my calendar messed up or something? It still says 22nd.

Honestly...it's Obsidian. The BB seems remarkably clean of bugs compared to, say, NWN 2 but I'm still expecting some serious work to be done.

Josh Sawyer strikes me as the kind of gamer that I would absolutely *love* to hang out with. Smart, dedicated, friendly, creative, and whole-heartedly dedicated to the nerdy hobbies that he loves. I kinda wish I knew the guy IRL.

A new, hardcover version at various sites is anything from 15 bucks without shipping to 19 with it. With Amazon Prime and free shipping, plus tax, I can get a copy for just over 17 bucks. If I had 17 bucks. Though no, this is not a digital copy I'm discussing.

Because streamers are not journalists. That line is a hell of a lot more blurry now than it was 10 years ago; 10 years from now I'm not sure it'll even exist.

How do I say this politely? An IGN article is not scientific rigor, and to say that the highly specialized and decades-refined addictive triggers used in slot machines and the use of achievements are the same sort of brain manipulation shows a lack of academic rigor.

<sarcasm tag>Oh, really? I never would have guess.</sarcasm tag>

From what I've seen of the Guidebook, it's worth that 15 bucks. It's 112 pages of detailed artwork and lore. I'd buy it in a heartbeat if I had 15 bucks that didn't have to go towards food.

The more people you give a press copy and an NDA to, the higher the likelihood that somebody will break that NDA. It's a risk/reward deal; they try to limit their risk by limiting the number of copies and keys handed out. I think they gave, like, one thousand press keys to Paradox but don't expect Paradox to hand out anywhere near that number. As opposed to the 91K backers the game had...

I have five cats. Cats are awesome. Better then dogs, slobbery weak-willed followers that they are.

Then do that. Achievements don't force you to do anything. That's all your choices, not the big bad achievement's bullying you into messing up your playing. The concept is of an achievement is a meta-game layer on top of actual gameplay. It's not as simple as you suggest, because games are actually rather great for preying on human weakness. It's the reason why slot machines are so successful: because they subvert the human subconciousness to illicit certain behaviours. In both cases, they exist to coax the player to keep playing to get the dopamine shot from having obtained a reward. You and I and mostly everyone else on the planet are actually chemically conditioned to pursue achievements. Slot machines are designed by teams of scientists to trigger specific parts of your brain that generate addictive behavior. The same trigger mechanisms are used in games like Candy Crush. Achievements are not that. Not only are achievement notifications toggable as a whole, but there is nothing in them designed to subvert or force your subconscious into specific actions. It's literally just lists of things you've done or can do and notifying when you have; whether you choose to do those things or not is entirely up to you. The two things are not directly comparable; it's like saying tobacco is addictive, so cabbage should be regulated.

Actually, Punchalot almost died. Good at punching things, not so good at avoiding damage.

Dude, it's Obsidian Entertainment. They ain't no small indie.