Playing other Kickstarter funded games makes me nervous

[Metabot]

That's a good point. There is a known risk going into these kickstarters. You have to look into the company's track record and if there is none there is always that risk.

[AwesomeOcelot]

Haven't gotten around to playing Shadowrun Returns even though I backed it, thing is $1.8m isn't a lot to make a RPG and just over a year is pretty short, I was not expecting it to be content rich or large, hopefully the planned DLC will make it better. The developer didn't have a great pedigree either, having made 2 mobile games, but they did have some veterans I respect greatly attached to the project, the people making the game didn't have a history. In terms of gameplay I don't think they were aiming to be like older games, and the Shadowrun game on the Mega Drive wasn't that complex.

 

You're right, Broken Age is a bit light, but I think that's more a design choice than because of Kickstarter funding, also running out of time and money was a choice as well, to do with the art of the game and the way its created. Aren't all Tim Schafer games terrible to play? I mean Grim Fandango has some of the worst gameplay ever, someone created an entire movie of it so you don't have to play it. Brad Muir said the combat in Psychonauts was terrible until he came on board, and even though that game is great it still has someone pretty bad parts in terms of gameplay. Thing is Double FIne has made one of the best Adventures I've ever played, Stacking, and I doubt that had a budget anywhere near Broken Age's.

 

FTL and Chivalry are best in class games. Gianna Sisters Twisted Dream is an incredible platformer, one of the best ever. Broken Sword 5 (at least the first episode) was on par with the original (the best Adventure game, Shadow of the Templars).

 

About Shadowrun Returns and the DLC, I think someone is attributing malice to something which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Edited January 17, 2014 by AwesomeOcelot

[Hassat Hunter]

Well, I've only backed one other game (Expeditions: Conquisitador) and it turned out just fine. Lots of different paths, options, alternative storylines. And yes, they did that with around $100k.

 

 

I am very worried, especially after I heard Josh Sawyer's talk here that mentioned that making the areas took much more work than they expected.

The latest journal almost makes it sounds like they're almost done... and they still have 11 months left to go.

So I am not worried that much myself...

[Kjaamor]

Shadowrun Returns is a terrible game and, though I concede that such things are far from my speciality, doesn't even look that impressive as a set of mod tools. Indeed, if they made the game on the basis of community created content then it says very little for their own design skills.

 

Expedition: Conquistadors is a game filled with promise that, in my opinion, blows its load about 1/3 of the way in. The first map is great, but by the end you've pretty much seen all there is to see. Not much reward to go around on the second, larger map. That said I played it not long after its release and it's been patched about a million times since then so maybe they've added in a lot of gameplay.

 

FTL is awesome.

 

In terms of P:E, I remain pretty optimistic (for all I'm constantly complaining on these forums) and I'd credit Obsidian to be a rather more capable outfit than Hairbrained are.

[talharbash]

PE is the only one I hold hope for and I backed quite a few KS games.

[Hurlshort]

Shadowrun Returns is by far the best kickstarter game I've played.  The campaign was a blast, and then I turned around and put a ton of hours in making my own adventures with an easy to use toolset.

 

 

The fact is your mileage may vary with these games.  You need to look at the developer first and foremost.  The money will not make them great.  You can look at HBS, and right way you know that it will definitely be a Shadowrun game with good writing.  But it shouldn't be a shock that they struggled with things like the save game functionality and art (because there isn't a track record there.)

 

Obsidian is a safer bet than most of these, because they are an established studio.  But I bet you we will have bugs.  Big bugs.       

[talharbash]

Hurlshot I don't want to turn this into a bash HBS thread, but the writing in SRR was lifted from the novels verbatim. I'm not sure where you got the "good writing" part. They just copied the novels, practically word for word.

[Keyrock]

I'm not worried.  I've enjoyed the other Kickstarter games I backed that already released, including Shadowrun Returns, which is one of my very favorite games of 2013 (I liked it so much I bought it again for my phone).  I only just started Broken Age, so can't comment too much on it.

[anameforobsidian]

I absolutely loved Broken Age and enjoyed Shadowrun Returns, so I'm feeling pretty good about PE.  If a game doesn't quite match a brilliant classic it pays homage to, it's still a great game.

[Marceror]

 

I wasn't ever expecting mega-epic in breadth or length to begin with, although I was/am hoping for a game that would take me (a slow-poke) 20-25 hours first-playthru at least. So I suppose for many others that might mean only 12-18.

 

My hopes rest more upon that quality/the world and various options are such that I want to replay the game more than once, as opposed to many games these days where I play it and go "that was some fun" and then never fire it up again.

 

It's pretty rare I rack up countless hours on a video game because the official campaign is really that long...it's more that I rack up hours via replays and endless tinkering of...whatever it is that interests me.

 

Btw, I didn't find BG1 to be all that long, either ... main campaign wise. I think I spent most of the time on non-quest things + trying to get every map to have as little "black" left on it as possible.

Pretty much my thoughts exactly, although I'm apparently incredibly slow at playing (took me 87 hours to go through DA:O the first time, while many players were saying they finished in 25 or so. Still don't know how they did that).

 

Oddly, my confidence in a good, long, meaty game will be boosted if Obsidian delays the game by several months. Anyone else feel that way as well?

 

They have already done that! We're not getting the game in April 2014 as originally projected!

[Marceror]

PE is the only one I hold hope for and I backed quite a few KS games.

I also hold out hope for Torment and Wasteland 2. I didn't back WL2 though. I wish I had, but it and Kickstarter weren't really on my radar at that point.

[Lephys]

They have already done that! We're not getting the game in April 2014 as originally projected!

Then really, they've just switched from a less accurate projection to a more accurate projection. They haven't "delayed" anything. The game took the same amount of time to make, no matter what. It's not like they were 70% done with it, then were hit by a quantum wave, and are now only 50% done with it. Or they just stopped working on it for a few weeks, then resumed.

 

I get the semantics there, but people keep acting as though when a game turns out to take longer than expected, it's somehow some active, voluntary hindrance to the game. They COULD just strip a bunch of stuff out of it and release it tomorrow. Just have one tiny village, and one wilderness area, 1 companion, 5-hour game, BOOM! Done. Does that mean that, by the act of designing a larger game than that that takes longer to make in the first place, they've delayed the game beyond the potential release date of 3 months ago? I think not.

[Tauron]

Lets shift from worry to hope...I never rationally assumed this would be uber rememberable over 100h game. (Truth be told there is that tiny spark of irrational exaggerated imagination...ohh the nostalgia or whatever) It is acually possibility to build upon this game. Future installments. If PoE acually becomes somewhat of success among coming tripple A RPG titles, who knows, maybe Osidian might get tripple A funding and we get uber rememberable 100-200h campain hehe.

[Guest]

The latest journal almost makes it sounds like they're almost done... and they still have 11 months left to go.

 

Did I miss an update? It's still due in April, right?

[Metabot]

Most likely not. The date on kickstarter is really a preliminary date that they have to enter before the kickstarter begins.

[deamon451]

I haven't really heard anything on either Shadowrun or Broken Age. Didn't back either and have been busy with other concerns. I did back Broken Sword 5 and it turned out fairly well, better I'd say than the previous ones.

 

I'm withholding judgement on PoE until I get it in my hands.

 

Edited for spelling

Edited January 17, 2014 by deamon451

[Marceror]

December 2014 is what's on the backer portal. I won't be incredibly surprised if that date slips.

[deamon451]

December 2014 is what's on the backer portal. I won't be incredibly surprised if that date slips.

Hopefully not to much. They said April 2014 on Kickstarter during the campaign for the basic version before we blew past that funding level.

[IndiraLightfoot]

I have great trust in the guys over at Obsidian, so I'm not worried. The updates so far has been amazing and the material presented is at least 90 % brilliant stuff all over the board.

 

As for Kickstarters, well, they've gone from awful (Legends of Dawn), to decent (Shadowrun Returns, Consortium), and all the way to really good (Expedition: Conquistador, Twisted Dream).

Edited January 17, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[LadyCrimson]

 

December 2014 is what's on the backer portal. I won't be incredibly surprised if that date slips.

Hopefully not to much. They said April 2014 on Kickstarter during the campaign for the basic version before we blew past that funding level.

 

Kickstarter, I believe, requires you to put up a projected completion date in order to even put up the KS for people to fund. Thus I think a lot of them are huge guesses, since they often don't know exactly what they're going to end up with, project size wise, for various reasons. So from what I've seen, not making the original guesstimate date is pretty common, unless the game/thing was practically finished before they even did the KS.

 

But yeah...I'm hoping it won't be much past Xmas 2014 or something. Mostly because I'm selfish and impatient.

[Messier-31]

Now that's tricky. I understand OP's fears but I have a lot of trust in Obsidian.

[JFSOCC]

Obsidian has a history of production problems they have been carefully trying to avoid on P:E. They've learned from their mistakes, have a strict production schedule, so far have been on, or ahead of schedule. I think unlike the other studious with kick-started projects, Obsidian is planning their time carefully and efficiently.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Obsidian has a history of production problems they have been carefully trying to avoid on P:E. They've learned from their mistakes, have a strict production schedule, so far have been on, or ahead of schedule. I think unlike the other studious with kick-started projects, Obsidian is planning their time carefully and efficiently.

I'd like to think they have, and I'm certainly hopeful based on what they've said during and after the KS campaign, but given I don't actually work there I'll wait for release before I say "oh yeah, this is a smooth production".

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Since Obsidian have outsourced some work, I'd say they're probably doing everything they can to remain on schedule.

[Endrosz]

My understanding (I'm too lazy to check the KS page/updates) is that the April 2014 date was given for the "base" game, WITHOUT all the stretch goals (like, stronghold, another big city, a mega-dungeon... small stuff, really ). To me, it was obvious that with all that extra content, it will take many months longer to deliver. Perhaps it wasn't so obvious to others.

 

I do, however, share the concerns of the OP. So many creative people, including Tim Schafer, have little to no grasp on business realities, and you NEED. SENSIBLE. BUSINESS. PRACTICES. TO SUCCEED. IN GAMING, like everywhere else. Like, budgeting and production schedules and milestones etc. I have the utmost respect for the Robert Khoos (of Penny Arcade) and Justin Baileys (of Double Fine) who do their best to keep their respective companies running.

 

When they put up that poll with "more monies for more stretch goals!", I definitely got a Broken Age-vibe from it, if you know what I mean. However, Sawyer stated that their concern is scope/length of the game. "You never get a second chance to make a first impression", so even if they add in more content later, the reviews will be out and the judgment passed. After pondering some, I've revised my stance on pumping additional time/money into Eternity -- I do really want the game to succeed beyond just giving us backers something we can chew on for a while. If more content is what's necessary to make this game get rave reviews, a high Metacritic score and all that **** I don't care about, but ultimately do affect the game's fate in the longer run -- I'm willing to give them what they ask for.

Edited January 17, 2014 by Endrosz