We need a bunch of non-backers buying this

[Katarack21]

 

I think the game might be too indy for mainstream gamers. Its probably sold a tiny bit better than wasteland 2. For some reason, it doesn't get any press. 

 

So far, D:OS tops the list for highest selling title that is funded by kickstarter. I would be surprise if it exceeds 500k or 200k within a month.

 

I think this game has more anticipation than D:OS, having the true BG vibe.

 

 

Didn't D:OS sell 160K in the first week? PoE is much more well known, I think. It's a bigger studio with a much larger and broader fanbase and reputation; it had a ton more backers, is getting more press coverage to lead up than D:OS did, etc. I don't think the two are directly comparable in that sense; I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it far outstrip D:OS.

[Eurhetemec]

Earning $4 million+ in Kickstarter backing is awesome. A fine thing.

 

Yet Having PoE sell like a latter day Baldur's Gate 2 would mean we might see more games like it, not to mention an even larger and more in-depth sequel. My motives for wanting PoE to be a huge success are essentially selfish: I want more CRPGs that play like CRPGs used to play like and that can only happen if people are convinced such CRPGs can still sell very well. 

 

Any suggestions for how to make this happen that don't involve fraud, violence or terrorism? Or at the very least very mild forms of those things, with light prison sentences? 

 

It's largely in the hands of the devs, I'm afraid.

 

If they make an accessible and good game that people feel comfortable recommending to others and/or gifting to others, Eternity will sell very well.

 

If they make a less-accessible, more niche-y kind of game that only appeals to a small number of people (no matter how much it appeals to that group), it will sell correspondingly less well.

 

What you should do is, if you like Eternity, when it's available, tell people about it, via your social media, RL friends, etc. You can bet most of them haven't heard of it, even if they like that kind of thing (for example, one of my friends was a huge Infinity Engine game fan - and he kickstarted T:ToN, but he is barely aware of Eternity and won't likely buy it unless I tell him about it).

 

I wouldn't expect insane sales immediately, of course, but if Eternity is good, Eternity 2 might well have fairly amazing sales.

 

 

 

Didn't D:OS sell 160K in the first week? PoE is much more well known, I think. It's a bigger studio with a much larger and broader fanbase and reputation; it had a ton more backers, is getting more press coverage to lead up than D:OS did, etc. I don't think the two are directly comparable in that sense; I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it far outstrip D:OS.

 

 

I wouldn't either but do note that D:OS was built around co-op, so virtually everyone who bought it bought at least two copies, one for them, one for a friend/SO to play it with. I know my brother bought about four, for example. Eternity doesn't have that factor working for it.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Eurhetemec

[Feleg]

I've been waiting for a BG type game to be made for years, but I've been stung too many times recently by pre-ordering something that never seems to get out of Beta. I'll wait for proper reviews (if I can trust them) or just read the forums for a week. I like what I see and probably will buy it.

 

What do backers / beta testers think? Without breaking any DA's, is this game what you expected? I am hoping for BG2 style game play and setting with up to date graphics and twirly shiny bits!

 

 

[Luckmann]

I've been waiting for a BG type game to be made for years, but I've been stung too many times recently by pre-ordering something that never seems to get out of Beta. I'll wait for proper reviews (if I can trust them) or just read the forums for a week. I like what I see and probably will buy it.

 

What do backers / beta testers think? Without breaking any DA's, is this game what you expected? I am hoping for BG2 style game play and setting with up to date graphics and twirly shiny bits!

 

There are no NDA:s from the beta(s), so there's no worry about that. There is a review embargo for those that received the "finished" version intended for release, but that's not really the same thing. Anyway, well...

 

It's a good game. Well the Backer Beta is, at least (I'm not a backer, but I have access to the backer beta). But it's not really.. Baldur's Gate 2 style gameplay with up to date graphics and twirly shiny bits. If you check around the forum, you'll notice some issues are being discussed repeatedly, such as the Engagement system, the lack of individual Stealth, the "Combat Only" abilities, no pre-buffing whatsoever, rather static combat, etc.

 

But it's still a good game. I would recommend it to any fan of the Infinity Engine games, I really would, but let's make it clear that it still has a long way to go to hit the sweet spot in more ways than one. I think that is what actually infuriates many of the fans more than if the game had actually been bad; the fact that it's actually not bad, but it's also not quite as good as it could be, sometimes for very strange, seemingly arbitrary and sometimes downright bizarre decisions. And sometimes simply because there are still issues with how all the rules and assumptions fit together (they don't; the armour system comes to mind) and a lack of balancing (attributes are lopsided and heavily favours min/maxing based on what you want to do).

 

It sounds like I'm dumping on the game, but I'm not. It's genuinely good in many, many ways, but you should curb your enthusiasm in the "spiritual successor"-department and play it for what it is or could be; a good start. A really good start.

[Vaalac]

I've been waiting for a BG type game to be made for years, but I've been stung too many times recently by pre-ordering something that never seems to get out of Beta. I'll wait for proper reviews (if I can trust them) or just read the forums for a week. I like what I see and probably will buy it.

 

What do backers / beta testers think? Without breaking any DA's, is this game what you expected? I am hoping for BG2 style game play and setting with up to date graphics and twirly shiny bits!

It sure looks like it's everything I expected. 

 

Just don't expect the combat to follow DnD rules, that's not the case. I know Sensuki is a bit disappointed about it because it's a lot more focusing on placement than strategic move (Basically a charater get a free hit if its enemy try to flee from melee). It also get rid of PreBuffing (which isn't a bad thing in my opinion).

 

Concerning the lore/writting, it looks awesome. And imo the game is beautiful.

 

So for me it's like a BG game with better graphics, good writting and slightly different mecanics/fights.

But keep in mind we didn't have access to the full game. Just a little part.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Vaalac

[Feleg]

Thanks peeps - sounds promising from what those last two posters say. I like plausible and consistent lore, good story telling and sensible rule set - doesn't have to be AD&D, hell, that's what you pay your processor to do )

 

Need to reboot my love for solo fantasy games after getting disgruntled with LOTRO and having too big a family to do the social MMO side...

[Horrorscope]

 

I've been waiting for a BG type game to be made for years, but I've been stung too many times recently by pre-ordering something that never seems to get out of Beta. I'll wait for proper reviews (if I can trust them) or just read the forums for a week. I like what I see and probably will buy it.

 

What do backers / beta testers think? Without breaking any DA's, is this game what you expected? I am hoping for BG2 style game play and setting with up to date graphics and twirly shiny bits!

 

There are no NDA:s from the beta(s), so there's no worry about that. There is a review embargo for those that received the "finished" version intended for release, but that's not really the same thing. Anyway, well...

 

It's a good game. Well the Backer Beta is, at least (I'm not a backer, but I have access to the backer beta). But it's not really.. Baldur's Gate 2 style gameplay with up to date graphics and twirly shiny bits. If you check around the forum, you'll notice some issues are being discussed repeatedly, such as the Engagement system, the lack of individual Stealth, the "Combat Only" abilities, no pre-buffing whatsoever, rather static combat, etc.

 

But it's still a good game. I would recommend it to any fan of the Infinity Engine games, I really would, but let's make it clear that it still has a long way to go to hit the sweet spot in more ways than one. I think that is what actually infuriates many of the fans more than if the game had actually been bad; the fact that it's actually not bad, but it's also not quite as good as it could be, sometimes for very strange, seemingly arbitrary and sometimes downright bizarre decisions. And sometimes simply because there are still issues with how all the rules and assumptions fit together (they don't; the armour system comes to mind) and a lack of balancing (attributes are lopsided and heavily favours min/maxing based on what you want to do).

 

It sounds like I'm dumping on the game, but I'm not. It's genuinely good in many, many ways, but you should curb your enthusiasm in the "spiritual successor"-department and play it for what it is or could be; a good start. A really good start.

 

 

Thanks, good info. I haven't been following religioulsy but since it is right around the corner been doing some catch up.

 

Like the decision about no buffs, that was just a step you had to do after the step of sleeping. I recall say in NWN the mod where you can hotkey a series of buffs each sleep. It made such a huge difference in two ways, saves a lot of clicks, but also you were so much stronger for it. Impossible to really balance vs a person that didn't want to buff all the time.

 

So the backer beta, they only got to see a small sliver of the game? As for D:OS we got the one town. What we'll see if it follow the patter for this genre's comeback, some massive balance patches, almost to the point you rather have waited 6 or so months before playing the game "As it was intended". Wasterland 2 and D:OS I believe both still have one more and possibly final balance patch. Xcom/Shadowrun... more of the same.

 

Very interested to see how "Slow" works. I'm not  huge fan of constant start/stopping of pause based games. So if Slow works out, perhaps I can work it that way in battle and still feel I'm commanding the team fairly well. Could be a missing ingrediant to the pause base genre.

[Grotesque]

I did some calculations and guestimation(this I did a lot  ; to manny unknowns, paradox cut, extra obsidian money) and ended with a figure of slightly less than 400k full price sales needed, for obsidian to be able to fund a similarly sized game after PoE post lunch support and expansion.

 

 

The biggest and most important unknow is how much of their money Obsidian put into this game because no way this could have been made with 4 kk USD. They even said so that they invested their own money. I think they spent another 3kk USD for this project.

 

So when we're talking about success, we should consider first money spent because nobody wants a classic game that blooms very late in sale charts!

[ComplyOrDie]

I thought this was probably the most appropriate place to ask the following:

 

Backed for 20$ - which was a decent amount of money to me then - and pre-purchased the expansion for another 20$. Managed to forget this was even being made until around 3-4 weeks ago. Now I'm stupidly hyped, have a day off work on Friday, and spend much of my free time reading these forums to get a feel for the game.

 

It now occurs to me I have the game and the expansion for less than the price of the game. I'm glad my money helped the game get made but I would definitely like to show more support now. I think the clincher was when I realised I spent more on Dragon Age Inquisition - which managed 10 hours of my time (ok it wasn't that bad but I'm not into that kind of game these days) - than on this.

 

Option 1: Can I upgrade my standard backer purchase to a champions/royal edition? I'm not sure they really appeal to me though, I'm not interested in a game guide etcetera just the game.

 

Option 2: Can I still purchase the Backer Beta? I'd quite like to do either Hard or Path of the Damned off the bat so learning the mechanics might help although I have no issues dying for two hours on the first fight while I work out what's going on. Problem is it might ruin the fun on Thursday night if I give in now, I suppose it's a reasonable Character Creation tester?

 

Option 3: Also buy a GoG copy for no apparent reason.

Edited March 22, 2015 by ComplyOrDie

[Hassat Hunter]

@ ComplyorDie: Check the additions tab of the backer website... digital stuff atleast should still be available, physical probably not

 

Actually, I'd consider that a failure.  D:OS had a fair amount of people talking it up before release, who then mysteriously vanished when it came out, as did the vast majority of the player-base.

 

Obsidian has a lot more attention than D;OS ever did for having the salty leavings sequels for two of the big 'RPG' franchises left to the market (for a given value of RPG, but both Bio and Beth have a lot of fanatics).  If they can't get more market attention for their own title than a nearly bankrupt Belgian studio, they've screwed the pooch.

Ehm, not sure where that D:OS story comes from... AFAIK that's simply not true.

Obsidian and Larian are not all that different in the RPG department with games. Divinity II: Dragon Knight Saga sold well, giving Larian fame. People still incorrectly attribute BioWare/Bethesda to Obsidian sequels, draining their fame.

So overall it's a pretty stable comparrision I think.

 

 

Highest selling kickstarter backed rpg so far, yes. But if we're talking kickstartered video games in general we'd probably have to award that one to FTL (even if their kickstarter was to fund the fees for setting up a business to sell the game, rather than to develop it).

 

But depending on how reviews and word of mouth goes, 300-400K sales should be a lowball (unless things go seriously wrong) and 1M or more sales is not out of the question if sentiment goes well.

*cough* Star Citizen*

 

What does it have, 80 million since it's Kickstarter? And it's not even RELEASED!

Nothing will ever thriump that, EVER.

 

Pretty much all Kickstarters I followed and Kickstarter devs who talked about it mentioned the money gained by KS was dwarved by the funds of the release, so I'm not that worried about Pillars.

 

And I happily slap along people who go "Why is it a $40,- game? It's already funded, they could just give it a $10 pricetag" "I don't understand economics at all!". You may laught, but a few already appeared on these forums. And I have NO clue how anyone can be that dense?

[Sparafucil]

I'm not a backer but I am definitely buying it on Steam soon.

 

I really want this game to sell more than 2 million copies. But I worry that even if it delivers, it will suffer from middling Metacritic scores based purely on the fact that it's catering to a niche audience that happens to like old school RPGs and the graphics are not bleeding-edge. Wasteland 2 averaged only 82 despite being very good even taking into account its bugs. Divinity Original Sin, which was flawless IMO, only averaged 87. Even taking into account its suspicious score aggregation methodology, Metacritic has a generally bias against PC indie games.

 

I don't put much stock in review scores, but they do affect sales unfortunately. I'm hoping PoE averages at least a respectable 86.

Edited March 22, 2015 by Sparafucil

[Malk]

I am  buying it and was not a Bata backer.  In my opinion these games appeal to older gamers 25+ and every year that goes by there are more gamers in that group so It should do well.  Just look at the Dragon Age franchise what game was best received. DA:O or DA:I 

[ManifestedISO]

Fate has determined, and I'm tempting it here, one metacritic point for each backer update. Score of 91. 

[Sky_walker]

I really want this game to sell more than 2 million copies. But I worry that even if it delivers, it will suffer from middling Metacritic scores based purely on the fact that it's catering to a niche audience that happens to like old school RPGs and the graphics are not bleeding-edge. Wasteland 2 averaged only 82 despite being very good even taking into account its bugs. Divinity Original Sin, which was flawless IMO, only averaged 87. Even taking into account its suspicious score aggregation methodology, Metacritic has a generally bias against PC indie games.

First of all - graphics ARE bleeding edge. Just bleeding edge 2D - but after Bastion I think people are ready to appriciate 2D graphics just as well as 3D. And PoE actually looks much better than either Bastion or pretty much every other 2D game released in last 5 years or so.

 

Wasteland 2 averaged 82 because it was an OKish game, but only that. I actually find 82 to be very generous score for Wasteland 2. It's more of a ~70 score game. Hardly a "very good" one. I even wrote a topic on what Pillars Of Eternity can learn from Wasteland 2.

 

And 87% metacritic score for Divinity is not "bias against indie games" - with that score it makes it to top-200 games of all time & all genres. I hardly consider it to be in any bias against this game. It's actually one of these few cases where score from the users is pretty much identical to the score from magazines. You might consider it flawless, but this game actually does have several flaws including one that's lethal to RPGs - linearity.

 

Also: 2 million copies is rather unrealistic goal. That would make it comparable to The Witcher 2 which had huge advertisnment campagin and was much more accessible game than PoE is. I'd be very happy if PoE would sell over 700 000 copies. But I have no idea what is the goal for Obsidian. At a very least they got 74 000 copies sold through kickstarter .

Edited March 23, 2015 by Sky_walker

[BruceVC]

 

 

Any suggestions for how to make this happen that don't involve fraud, violence or terrorism? Or at the very least very mild forms of those things, with light prison sentences? 

 

Excellent question, " how would Obsidian increase revenue through sales " ?

 

Obviously we can all  agree on the benefits of PoE selling well, that's not even a talking point. So what we are really asking is getting people who aren't active on these forums and who didn't support the game through KS to now purchase PoE.

 

There have been some good suggestions but we need to accept that if you can include Romance that will draw the Romance crowd  who sometimes spend money on purchasing a game just because there is Romance.

 

So my idea is to start looking seriously at Romance in PoE 2, that will increase revenue 

[Katarack21]

First of all - graphics ARE bleeding edge. Just bleeding edge 2D

 

Yes! Exactly! I've been trying to figure out how to phrase my argument against these "Those graphics suck!" statements I've seen, because the game is freaking gorgeous, and that is exactly the fact.

 

Bleeding edge, as-advance-as-I've-ever-seen-them, 2D graphics. :-D

[Hassat Hunter]

I dunno... 2D isometric sex scenes are hard to pull off to gather the BioWarian crowd...

[Katarack21]

Like the sex scenes in Bioware games are anything to care about. I've seen harder material on Wizards of Waverly Place.

[Killyox]

2D graphics when done right are not bad at all. POE looks very good. Shadowrun: Dragonfall Director's Cut looks really cool too. Shadowrun: Hong Kong looks even better from the glimpses I've seen. Bastion, Transistor also look gorgeus. Ori and the Blind Forest is also very eye-candy.

 

I don't really understand why people always assume that good graphics mean 3D and not 2D. 2D also ages a whole lot better than 3D.

[Fredward]

Bioware gets a lot of flack on these forums don't they?

[Valmy]

Bioware gets a lot of flack on these forums don't they?

 

They certainly have their fans still but yeah, they moved on from us hardcore RPG fans and we feel sad.

[Valmy]

 

I don't really understand why people always assume that good graphics mean 3D and not 2D. 2D also ages a whole lot better than 3D.

 

That is certainly true for 1990s games. I can still enjoy the graphics from Baldur's Gate but man 3D games from that year are painful.

[Katarack21]

 

Bioware gets a lot of flack on these forums don't they?

 

They certainly have their fans still but yeah, they moved on from us hardcore RPG fans and we feel sad.

 

That's no joke. Bioware was literally my very favorite game company; they made my favorite games. I loved everything they did--it was like a treasure trove of awesome every time they made a game.

 

Until EAl. When EA ripped out everything decent in Bioware and left a soulless husk, it felt like a direct betrayal.

[Luckmann]

 

 

Bioware gets a lot of flack on these forums don't they?

 

They certainly have their fans still but yeah, they moved on from us hardcore RPG fans and we feel sad.

 

That's no joke. Bioware was literally my very favorite game company; they made my favorite games. I loved everything they did--it was like a treasure trove of awesome every time they made a game.

 

Until EAl. When EA ripped out everything decent in Bioware and left a soulless husk, it felt like a direct betrayal.

 

 

I loved the "Dragon Age and Mass Effect will remain separate franchises aimed at different people, don't worry"-pitch.

 

Hahahahaha, oh wow. And then there was EA, ME2, and DA2.

 

There's a reason I got banned there and was locked out of all my EA content I had (DA:O CE, ME2 CE, and all the DLC at the time).

Edited March 23, 2015 by Luckmann

[Fredward]

Ooooo-kay then. Well I will try my utmost to remain a Bioware fanboi while also enjoying PoE. I'm hoping no one stabs me for divided loyalties or some such.