Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues

[alanschu]

from venturebeat:

 

 

Backers already contributed more than $300,000 to Garriott’s newest

game in under six hours. That’s impressive, but it clearly won’t reach a

$1 million faster than Torment did.

“Brian’s team, I believe, is doing its second Kickstarter into the

same audience,” Garriott told GamesBeat. “So out of the chute, you’d

expect them to do quite well.”

 

Your relativism is kind of sucky, Mr Garriot. Out of the chute, you'd expect them not to get a cent, because their audience is already saturated.

 

Also, does anyone else slowly get the creeps from his Lord British persona? It was ok in the goofy 80s, maybe the early 90s, but I don't enjoy hearing an old man talk about how he's lord of the realm and we are his good subjects.

 

 

Saturated with ONE game?

[Sacred_Path]

 

 

from venturebeat:

 

 

Backers already contributed more than $300,000 to Garriott’s newest

game in under six hours. That’s impressive, but it clearly won’t reach a

$1 million faster than Torment did.

 

“Brian’s team, I believe, is doing its second Kickstarter into the

same audience,” Garriott told GamesBeat. “So out of the chute, you’d

expect them to do quite well.”

 

Your relativism is kind of sucky, Mr Garriot. Out of the chute, you'd expect them not to get a cent, because their audience is already saturated.

 

Also, does anyone else slowly get the creeps from his Lord British persona? It was ok in the goofy 80s, maybe the early 90s, but I don't enjoy hearing an old man talk about how he's lord of the realm and we are his good subjects.

 

 

 

 

Saturated with ONE game?

 

 

How many InXile games do you want to have on preorder before you've ever played one? 9000?

[LadyCrimson]

about 5 minutes of gameplay from the prototype, for those interested.

Just with that video, I'm seriously reminded of The Summoner. It's probably just the overland map traveling style.

 

I dunno....while it may not be a typical MMO and can be played single-player, it still sounds like it has too much focus on multiplayer features for my personal liking.

[alanschu]

 

Eh, Fargo is an affluent individual as well.  If we're going to slag on Garriott for asking for outside investment (a common thing for rich folk to do), we'd have to drag Brian through the coals as well.

 

I have zero interest in contributing to this product, but I have no qualms about Garriott using Kickstarter to fund it regardless of how rich he is.

 

Yeah, that's a big strawman, because Fargo couldn't afford to fund W2 or Torment by himself without risking his financial future, whereas Garriott could (and if he can't, then he's wasted a lot of money). 

 

Unless Fargo has more than $5 million in the bank...

 

 

I wouldn't be surprised if Fargo was filthy rich himself.  He and Garriott are both somewhat cut from the same ilk in terms of timing and contribution to gaming.

 

Also note that Fargo only asked for $900,000 for both games.  (And with Wasteland 2, was agreeing to put up $100,000 towards the project right out of the gate).

[C2B]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/portalarium/shroud-of-the-avatar-forsaken-virtues-0/posts/423983

[SunBroSolaire]

Graphics look super generic. There's a reason concept art exists: so people can have an idea of what the finished product aims to look like, what aesthetic it's trying to capture, what the tone of the whole project will be. So share it in the Kickstarter! All I see now is awful early 2000s 3D, which isn't inspiring much confidence. I understand it's alpha footage, but I need to see something to make me believe the game will not look like crap.

 

Gameplay sounds pretty lame. 3rd person action RPG with microtransaction fueled diversions and MMO elements. No thanks.

 

There doesn't seem to be any lore info in the pitch video, so I conclude that I was correct in assuming they are just relying on bog standard fantasy Europlandia Generica.

 

Also this goon hasn't done anything noteworthy besides taking a vacation in space in what, a decade? And are there any other trustworthy game developers on board? No?

 

I don't see a single reason to back this. And I don't see why Garriot needs our backing if he can drop $30 million on a vacation. Just wreaks of cynicism that Kickstarter has been mercifully free of up till now.

[MacMichael]

 

What if a hack'n'slash MMO in this vein is what one wants, however?

Then I say pledge.

 

But I'd be surprised if that's what classic Ultima fans want.

 

Which classic Ultima fans?

 

The top down party-based Ultima 1-3 in which you could choose your race as well as class?  The top down, more story based Ultima 4-5, in which you were human.  The very story heavy party based isometric 6-7 part 2.  The more hack-and-slash single character Ultima 8.  The return of choice between male and female in Ultima 9.  The first person dungeon crawl of Ultima Underworld 1 and 2?  The trips out into strange new places in Worlds of Ultima Martian Dreams and Savage Empire?  The MMO Ultima Online?  Perhaps it's Ultima 5: Lazarus, the remake of Ultima 5 in the Dungeon Siege engine?  Perhaps the Ultima 6 remake in the same?  Did that one ever release?  I'll have to check.  Ultima has been many things.  And if you take a group like the Ultima Dragons - Internet Chapter, a large number joined with UO.  Ultima has been many things through it's history, so any idea that there's some monolithic block of "classic Ultima fans" is a little silly.

 

Personally, I don't know yet if I have an interest in actually funding this.  Garriot has made some great games, and some games that failed, but had interesting ideas behind them.  I might throw in a few dollars just to see what comes from it, I might just wait.  We'll see.  I am glad to see him working on something again, however it turns out.

[Sacred_Path]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/portalarium/shroud-of-the-avatar-forsaken-virtues-0/posts/423983

suffering through this right now. The ads don't help.

 

He's pretty patronizing, but he's so blissfully unaware of it. "Moustache guy!" lol. Who else could get away with such a persona. Kudos to him, I guess.

[Zoraptor]

Yeah, that's a big strawman, because Fargo couldn't afford to fund W2 or Torment by himself without risking his financial future, whereas Garriott could (and if he can't, then he's wasted a lot of money). 

 

Unless Fargo has more than $5 million in the bank...

He doesn't need $5 million in the bank though, he needs $900k, at least in theory. They're both doing it for the same reasons, kickstarter money is effectively 'free' investment capital with very little obligation and most every businessman alive loves free money. Fargo doesn't need to kickstart Torment either, he still has funds from WL2 to pay his employees and excess sales from that title will mean excess profits usable for funding future projects. He needs to do it 'only' so as to run his business most efficiently and not drop employees as they become, er, redundant to WL2. They're both making decisions for business reasons.

 

They aren't identical circumstances, of course, but they're comparable enough not to be a strawman.

[Tigranes]

He can't use WL2 money to fund Torment, that would make all hell break loose from people who backed WL2 and it certainly wouldn't be enough. 

 

I suppose if Fargo is rich enough then you're right, it changes to the question of 'how rich do you have to be to make your KS smell bad'. I don't know...

[TSBasilisk]

For the talk about the combat system, they discussed it during their live feed. Richard expressly did not want to go the Diablo or WoW route. They're currently working on a design that's similar to card battle games, using runes to allow you to activate abilities.

[Theobeau]

about 5 minutes of gameplay from the prototype, for those interested.

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.

[Zoraptor]

He can't use WL2 money to fund Torment, that would make all hell break loose from people who backed WL2 and it certainly wouldn't be enough. 

 

I suppose if Fargo is rich enough then you're right, it changes to the question of 'how rich do you have to be to make your KS smell bad'. I don't know...

I wasn't talking of the kickstarter WL2 funds, but using money from 'retail' sales of WL2 to fund Torment. Once WL2 is released and selling on Steam/ GOG/ Gamersgate/ Origin/ Impulse InXile would have those funds to spend on Torment, doing it that way is just less 'convenient' to him than holding another kickstarter and getting free funding. If WL2 sold in the 200k+ bracket those excess sales would even provide more money than the current kickstarter- it isn't, after all, going to go into trust for the starving masses of the world or paying a rebate to kickstarter investors, it's going to be used on future commercial activities. They're making cold, logical economic decisions either way, just as Garriott is.

[alanschu]

He can't use WL2 money to fund Torment, that would make all hell break loose from people who backed WL2 and it certainly wouldn't be enough. 

 

I suppose if Fargo is rich enough then you're right, it changes to the question of 'how rich do you have to be to make your KS smell bad'. I don't know...

 

 

Is there actually the any sort of breakdown in how the kickstarter funds are being allocated for most of these games?

[TSBasilisk]

Some will do a breakdown of expected cash usage of what they receive.

[nikolokolus]

Maybe this game will turn out great, but the pitch just raised more questions for me than it answered about how this is all supposed to work out.  At some point I've seen the words "microtransactions," "taxes," "PvP," and "Persistence" thrown around.  Something that evokes the image of a F2P MMO ... but supposedly it's not an MMO?

 

Loved Ultima 1-7 back in the day, but I tried UO and hated it and most people remember how U8 and U9 turned out, so I have mixed feelings about Garriot's vision for what makes a good RPG, especially since his later stuff falls down for me compared to his earlier stuff.

 

I don't feel like I can back this (especially since I'm throwing $75 bucks at Torment) but I guess I'll keep an eye on it and see how things progress - It looks like it will probably reach its funding goal.

[Sacred_Path]

The Glinkie Letters lol

[Tigranes]

 

He can't use WL2 money to fund Torment, that would make all hell break loose from people who backed WL2 and it certainly wouldn't be enough. 

 

I suppose if Fargo is rich enough then you're right, it changes to the question of 'how rich do you have to be to make your KS smell bad'. I don't know...

 

 

Is there actually the any sort of breakdown in how the kickstarter funds are being allocated for most of these games?

 

 

We don't have comprehensive data. Double Fine released a pretty good breakdown of their resource usage to backers, but I imagine it varies project to project. E.g. in DF's case they were very clear from the start that a large portion would go into the documentary, and they've hired a professional filming crew and have produced (backer-only) docu updates often; but we do know from DF's data that you take out 10% for Amazon and Kickstarter; ~2% for failed transactions; then, for reward-happy KS with huge # of backers like DF / PE / Torment, a few hundred thousand dollars for rewards. A conservative assumption, for example, would be that from the $4 million Obsidian received, about a million of that goes into these non-development costs. 

 

As for the dev costs itself, I don't know enough about the various factors involved (third party tools, location, etc) to give any kind of reliable indicator - hell, you should be able to give a better estimate than me, alanschu. 

 

There was one smaller KS which admitted they screwed up and used their 5-digit KS money and couldn't finish the game, and they released a full breakdown which included a few amateur, but probably well-intentioned mistakes: e.g. hiring a certified accountant. 

 

The thing about KS is that despite literally hundreds of millions of dollars having gone into successful projects over the last couple of years, there isn't a lot of good data. KS hides failed project pages from google searches, and is only now reluctantly divulging some general statistics. (Someone scraped the data to show what % of projects fail, etc: http://www.appsblogger.com/kickstarter-infographic/) 

 

 

He can't use WL2 money to fund Torment, that would make all hell break loose from people who backed WL2 and it certainly wouldn't be enough. 

 

I suppose if Fargo is rich enough then you're right, it changes to the question of 'how rich do you have to be to make your KS smell bad'. I don't know...

I wasn't talking of the kickstarter WL2 funds, but using money from 'retail' sales of WL2 to fund Torment. Once WL2 is released and selling on Steam/ GOG/ Gamersgate/ Origin/ Impulse InXile would have those funds to spend on Torment, doing it that way is just less 'convenient' to him than holding another kickstarter and getting free funding. If WL2 sold in the 200k+ bracket those excess sales would even provide more money than the current kickstarter- it isn't, after all, going to go into trust for the starving masses of the world or paying a rebate to kickstarter investors, it's going to be used on future commercial activities. They're making cold, logical economic decisions either way, just as Garriott is.

 

Yeah, this was already a big fat long discussion, and the point (well summarised in inXile's 'Why now?' WL2 update) was that by waiting until WL2 is released, they'd have had to fire many of their writers and artists. As it stands now, WL2 KS funds pre-production; Torment KS funds these same guys to go into Torment preproduction; when WL2 is released, sales revenue (hopefully) means the same guys phase into Project 3's pre-production; Torment's sales for Project 4; and so forth. This is a standard model, one which Obsidian follows as well. You can't just make one game, finish it, then start another with the revenue, unless you're a team of less than 10 people where everyone does everything (which was the case back in the day). 

[Hurlshort]

That's why Obsidian seems to perpetually be in pitch mode.  Even if quite a few of the projects don't ever see the light of day, that's the way to stay in business.

 

It's also why I don't think Kickstarter is ever going to replace the publisher model, at least not for a mid size studio.  

[NerdBoner]

What if a hack'n'slash MMO in this vein is what one wants, however?

there are a plethora of better games out there that cater to such base, un-monocled desires...Guild Wars 2 for example, I hear is excellent in this regard and all you have to do is buy the game, no subscription.

Edited March 10, 2013 by NerdBoner

[Zoraptor]

Yeah, this was already a big fat long discussion, and the point (well summarised in inXile's 'Why now?' WL2 update) was that by waiting until WL2 is released, they'd have had to fire many of their writers and artists. As it stands now, WL2 KS funds pre-production; Torment KS funds these same guys to go into Torment preproduction; when WL2 is released, sales revenue (hopefully) means the same guys phase into Project 3's pre-production; Torment's sales for Project 4; and so forth. This is a standard model, one which Obsidian follows as well. You can't just make one game, finish it, then start another with the revenue, unless you're a team of less than 10 people where everyone does everything (which was the case back in the day).

Yeah, I know the rationale and it's fine, I don't have any issue with the reasons behind it at all, but I also don't have any problems with the reasons behind RG's approach either. All I'm pointing out is that for all the people saying that Garriott should fund himself instead of going to KS while talking up Fargo it isn't like Fargo doesn't have alternatives as well, he's using KS because it's the best option for him just as Garriott is- and at its heart they are both using KS for identical reasons, it's effectively 'free' funding with few constraints to it.

[Hurlshort]

 

What if a hack'n'slash MMO in this vein is what one wants, however?

there are a plethora of better games out there that cater to such base, un-monocled desires...Guild Wars 2 for example, I hear is excellent in this regard and all you have to do is buy the game, no subscription.

 

Given that the game isn't even out yet (and is only in the early stages of development), it might be a bit early to compare it to a completed game.  Also there has been no mention of a subscription, and the $30 price point is considerably cheaper than the original full price for Guild Wars 2. 

[Azure79]

I never was a huge Ultima fan, so I'll just wait and see with this one. 

 

I've backed too many projects already at this point. 

[MrBrown]

Bad idea to put actual graphics on the kickstarter page. Should have just used art or something (like PE or Torment), then people won't realize they can't get AAA graphics with a few million dollars.

[Malcador]

Bad idea to put actual graphics on the kickstarter page. Should have just used art or something (like PE or Torment), then people won't realize they can't get AAA graphics with a few million dollars.

Does work towards showing people you have some early work done, I guess that's more useful for people who don't need to cash in on their reputation & name though.