The Deadfire Campaign & What Went Wrong

[SonicMage117]

Well, it's finally over and it was greatly succesful. It may or may not bug people that we didn't make that next stretch goal but let's talk about the campaign as backers or as fans (all the same).

 

What went right?

 

What went wrong?

 

Why didn't we reach the last stretch goal in time? (So close but yet so far!)

 

Was there anything you feel that Obsidian could have done differently?

 

Was there anything the community could have done better to spread the word?

 

Thoughts/Input and tips for Obsidian's possible next game campaign... post them here. I want to hear your story and opinion.

 

Are you happy or mad that we didn't reach the Fishing/Sea Monster stretch goal or maybe you just don't care? Let's share!

 

AND CONGRATS OBSIDIAN!

Edited May 2, 2017 by SonicMage117

[Guest]

1) It exceeded the Project Eternity haul with only half the supporters.

 

2) Stretch goals were fully scoped before the campaign even started, meaning no more making **** up on the fly.

 

3) There were two stretch goals that we didn't hit. For some reason people keep referring to the $4.75m goal as the last one.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Right: Got a big haul. Multiclassing.

 

Different: Less supporters, but with Kickstarter letting you give $1 I'd wager a good bit of this loss was PoE alts giving $1 donations to inflate Od Nua levels. How much is uncertain obviously.

 

Wrong: While I won't lose sleep over no Ydwin I will be eternally butthurt over less sea monsters. Sidekicks seems redundant, yes I know muh BG2 had simple companions but that's a bioware game with mountains of cheese, one full fledged companion or sea monsters would be better especially considering we already have the Adventurers to hire. Berath's Blessing is also kinda lame.

[rjshae]

The whole Fulvano's voyage thing didn't work for me. I didn't care about the Fishing and Sea Monsters stretch goal either -- that part stretched on for much too long. Otherwise I thought it was all top notch. The multi-classing explanation was the highlight for me and I'm looking forward to seeing that in action.

[Katarack21]

Yes, for me Fulvano's Voyage didn't grab me the same way Od Nua did. Also, I don't give a crap about fishing *at all*. I do love me some companions, and sidekicks fall in the same category so YAY, but fishing, really?

The things that grab me about the sequel are things like importing a character with a Deadfire background and seeing what happens.

[SonicMage117]

I will miss the sea monsters, I too, didn't care too much for the fishing.

[ThatUndeadLegacy]

1) It exceeded the Project Eternity haul with only half the supporters.

 

2) Stretch goals were fully scoped before the campaign even started, meaning no more making **** up on the fly.

 

3) There were two stretch goals that we didn't hit. For some reason people keep referring to the $4.75m goal as the last one

The Last attainable one. 

[Guest]

 

1) It exceeded the Project Eternity haul with only half the supporters.

2) Stretch goals were fully scoped before the campaign even started, meaning no more making **** up on the fly.

3) There were two stretch goals that we didn't hit. For some reason people keep referring to the $4.75m goal as the last one

 

The Last attainable one.

I guess you're going to need to operationally define "attainable" for me. So far as I know, no laws of physics were preventing us from (nor would have been violated by) us hitting $5m. Like $4.75m, the support just wasn't there. The people who were gonna give gave as much as they could and we should probably start making out peace with that.

[Quillon]

Also, I don't give a crap about fishing *at all*. I do love me some companions, and sidekicks fall in the same category so YAY, but fishing, really?

 

Fishing on its own sounds crappy especially in a game like this but it would have been cool to see its tie-ins with other systems/content like fishing out cool gear, mysterious items/bodies - leading to quests, quests that would need us to fish out certain things, disturbing monsters so they should come out and play with us etc apart from "collecting fishes"(Was it gonna be fishing rod fishing or harpooning for big fishes I wonder ). At least it could have add another layer to the game which would have effected many things and be in most places in the game(there will be more ocean than land prolly ) and a game having "fishing" is good for marketing, also "sea monsters" which are still gonna be in the game, tho prolly lesser in variety.

[dukeisaac]

IMO, it was a very effective campaign. Tight, well planned stretch goals, a good pacing in the updates and just enough humour to make it light (Feb 14th update LOL). POE2 is looking to become an amazing game.

 

If I had any criticism to offer, I guess I'd say that the Tekehu reveal was very awkward. There's absolutely no hype about him (to the contrary of all other companions) and when they do finally reveal more about him, I fear reactions will be pretty much "meh".

 

Probably would have been better to keep him as a surprise reveal for down the road or something...

 

Apart from that topnotch!

Edited May 3, 2017 by dukeisaac

[Tigranes]

One of the unfortunate side effects of crowdfunding is the excessive and mostly useless nitpicking, so I'll try not to add to that. 

 

I think on the whole it was a very coherent campaign, with stretch goals and rewards much less likely to cause grief for the development process. Whether I like them or don't care about them, I'm not so fussed about the stretch goals we miss out on. Most important thing is a good game, not a long list of features they have to tick the box on.

 

I think the money they got is a good haul for a sequel coming well after the initial honeymoon period of game crowdfunding. But I wonder whether fig's investor model is going to eat significantly into the profits in the long run, and cause more sustainability problems as they try to then make POE3.

Edited May 3, 2017 by Tigranes

[Sedrefilos]

What's all this excitement about what Obsidian does or is going to do with their business plans? We're not shareholders or something. We just pre-order their game(s).

The campaign was fine. I doubt they needed all that money for each individual stretch goal but if people come pouring $ in you have to show that they're going somewhere, I suppose. As for fishing, I couldn't care less, though sea monsters sounded nice. Game has a lot of stuff already so I think I can live without them for the time. Maybe we'll see them in an expansion.

As for the future... eh, whatever Feargus thinκs gonna bring them money I guess. It's not that we're gonna be asked lol :D
I trust them in any case. They're good devs

 

Edit:needed instead of wanted.

Edited May 3, 2017 by Sedrefilos

[FabMan_UK]

I didn't fund Deadfire as I don't have the time to play games as much, so when I do, I'll make sure it's once The Expansions have been released and it has been patched. I don't want to deal with bugs anymore, or figure out mods also.

 

But I'm only one person, my $30 wouldn't have made much difference.

[SonicMage117]

What's all this excitement about what Obsidian does or is going to do with their business plans? We're not shareholders or something. We just pre-order their game(s).

 

As for the future... eh, whatever Feargus thinκs gonna bring them money I guess. It's not that we're gonna be asked lol :D

I really hope this thread didn't come off that way, that was not my intention but at the same time we are somewhat responsible as well because we are the funders of tgis particular project. I don't look at it as questioning Obsidian's actions but more like giving helpful feedback for the next run.

 

Also, I think Fergus and the team will care enough to read this and take it 100% seriously. I'm pretty sure they already asked themselves the very same questions. They're very smart people, Obsidian, but sometimes community response points out some things they would never think of otherwise.

[MaxQuest]

What went right?

Dunno, pretty much everything?

 

Why didn't we reach the last stretch goal in time? (So close but yet so far!)

We didn't have enough bakers to reach that goal. Either it is due to the limited amount of fans of this genre, or they simply were not informed.

 

Was there anything you feel that Obsidian could have done differently?

- well, hmm, it felt a bit strange that the stretch goals pacing changed from 0.2M to 0.25M after the 3.0M mark.

- the order of these goals. I felt that Sea Monsters and Ydwin as full companion (especially because of relationships goal) are more important than a talking Weapon. Partially because I've found soulbound weapons to be a bit suboptimal for pure dps'ers in PoE1(as they could not be durganized/lashed). And partially because we would probably get more weapons as rewards from those monsters, right?

- same thing with Berath's Blessing. It's like Witcher's 3 New Game+ free DLC which became available 3 months after release. I mean it's something that is good to have, but it can wait. 

 

Are you happy or mad that we didn't reach the Fishing/Sea Monster stretch goal or maybe you just don't care? Let's share!

Personally I don't really care much about fishing. But that's because I don't quite know what to expect from it, nor do I have what to compare it to. Maybe WoW fishing? If so, then what's the point? 

 

I wanted to have sea monsters through. Like Kraken, Radiant Gulf Spore, Leviathans, Aqua Dragons, Sea Hags, etc. A series of very tough encounters with great rewards. Were some enemies are at max level, while others scale with your own + 3. Something like that.

Edited May 3, 2017 by MaxQuest

[AndreaColombo]

^ I basically agree with all MaxQuest wrote.

[JerekKruger]

We didn't have enough bakers to reach that goal.

 

I agree. If Obsidian had offered cakes for all backers I am sure we'd have reached $5M

 

- the order of these goals. I felt that Sea Monsters and Ydwin as full companion (especially because of relationships goal) are more important than a talking Weapon. Partially because I've found soulbound weapons to be a bit suboptimal for pure dps'ers in PoE1(as they could not be durganized/lashed). And partially because we would probably get more weapons as rewards from those monsters, right?

 

I am cautiously optimistic that Obsidian will make sure soulbound weapons don't lag behind non-soulbound ones in Deadfire, since I seem to remember Josh acknowledging the difference in one of the Q&A streams. Of course I am sure there'll be better and worse weapons, but hopefully there will be a mixture of both types at the top of the rankings.

 

- same thing with Berath's Blessing. It's like Witcher's 3 New Game+ free DLC which became available 3 months after release. I mean it's something that is good to have, but it can wait.

 

Agreed.

 

Personally I don't really care much about fishing. But that's because I don't quite know what to expect from it, nor do I have what to compare it to. Maybe WoW fishing? If so, then what's the point?

 

I'd actually prefer it if they didn't include the fishing part of Fishing and Sea Monsters.

 

I wanted to have sea monsters through. Like Kraken, Radiant Gulf Spore, Leviathans, Aqua Dragons, Sea Hags, etc. A series of very tough encounters with great rewards. Were some enemies are at max level, while others scale with your own + 3. Something like that.

 

Agreed. I am hopeful that there will be plenty of these already, and that any work towards potential stretch goal versons will end up being included anyway (hey, we got part way towards the stretch goal, just cut the fishing part of the stretch goal  )

Edited May 3, 2017 by JerekKruger

[MaxQuest]

Agreed. I am hopeful that there will be plenty of these already, and that any work towards potential stretch goal versons will end up being included anyway (hey, we got part way towards the stretch goal, just cut the fishing part of the stretch goal  )

Ahah) Cut the fishing! Unleash the Krakens!

[Gfted1]

I didnt fund PoEII either for various reasons. But Ill definately pick it and its expansion up during some later Steam sale in support of Obs.

[SonicMage117]

Yeah, I think the majority of the backers wanted sea monsters and didn't want or care about the fishing lol The thing is, fishing seems to be in alot of modern rpg's, it's become somewhat of a standard thing but it shouldn't be - well there is no reason for it to be anyway.

 

Like others say, I expect sea monsters in the dlc, I also expect alot of shippy stuff and things of that nature.

I didnt fund PoEII either for various reasons. But Ill definately pick it and its expansion up during some later Steam sale in support of Obs.

You must be a very patient person

[blotter]

 

What went right?

 

1. I think they did a good job overall of maintaining backer/investor interest during the original campaign from January 26th to February 24th. If memory serves, it was Sawyer's multiclass video that actually drew me to these boards in the first place: I only registered to begin with so I could view the links in that old thread about information from the SomethingAwful boards and I only started posting to meet the minimum number required to make my account stick. Since then, I've found that they've given us plenty to discuss (for better or worse in some cases).

 

2. Related to the above, I think they did a get job of providing a fairly steady stream of information throughout the process of the original campaign. I wasn't interested in all of it, and I certainly didn't care about each and every stretch goal, but just watching the wheels continued to move brought some promise for the future.

 

3. The Final Hours Stream on February 24th was a nice touch, even if I didn't come close to sitting through all of it.

 

4. Like others, I'd say it's hard to knock the end result of the campaign in regards to the pledges it attracted: 4.7 and some change is huge.

 

 

What went wrong?

 

I'm loathe to criticize too much since I'm not aware of precisely what went into the process, but the repeated setbacks and missed estimates for when they'd implement a Paypal option for the campaign didn't look good at all from where I was sitting. Even if it didn't affect me personally since I pledged through Fig, that situation really seemed to drag on and the multiple missed dates made similar estimates seem a lot less credible to me.

 

 

Why didn't we reach the last stretch goal in time? (So close but yet so far!)

 

It's possible that there was still untapped potential among people who either hadn't received much exposure to the campaign or didn't realize it was still going on (particularly with the campaign's extension to the 28th occurring towards the very end), but it seems more likely to me that the campaign had simply gone as far as it could in terms of gathering pledges (and again, I think that's really far).

 

I won't address the "anything different" questions toward Obsidian/the Community because what I know about consumer/fan outreach wouldn't fill a baby mouse's bladder.

 

 

Thoughts/Input and tips for Obsidian's possible next game campaign... post them here. I want to hear your story and opinion.

 

I'm not going to go into particular stories or themes, but I remember hearing that Sawyer's been working on a turn-based historical rpg. That sounds interesting to me.

 

As a D&D nerd, I'd also like to see a Pathfinder rpg (I've never cared about card games). If it ever did happen, though, I'd be somewhat concerned about how annoyed I'd get at being unable to houserule aspects of the system that I don't care for (there's always the possibility of mods, though).

 

Obsidian also expressed interest in working on a game in the Dune setting (even if there's nothing foreseeably in the works for it), and I think that has a lot of potential as well.

 

 

Are you happy or mad that we didn't reach the Fishing/Sea Monster stretch goal or maybe you just don't care? Let's share!

 

I never cared about fishing. Even if it was done well, I don't think it ever would've registered to me beyond an initial "Oh, well that's nice, I guess..." reaction.

 

I was interested in having more sea monsters in the game. That said, I was probably more annoyed that the some of the promotion for the stretch goal itself made it sound like we had to reach 4.75 mil or there'd be no sea monsters in the game at all, even if, based on the information they shared about the game thus far through Q&As and so forth, I was still confident we'd be encountering sea monsters either way.

Edited May 3, 2017 by blotter

[Wormerine]

What I liked the most about the campain is that when it started I decided that it is silly to throw my money at the game, which won't be released for a while and purchased existing one (Tyranny.) It made me so hyped that I threw my money at PoE2 anyway, reinstalled PoE1 and somehow found enough time to beat it before the campain ended. So I liked that.

On the more serious note, I really liked the stretchgoals. First of all, early stretchgoals were the essencial ones (multiclassing, subclasses), the other one benefit the game, but they don't change the nature of the game, just expand on existing concepts and polish. I also thought that the updates were really well planned, making you excited about the game, while keeping things vague enough and keeping the best reveals till the end.

 

Why didn't we reach more stretchgoals? Seamonsters look cool, but fishing - not so much. 8th companion? It would be nice, but I am happy with announced roster of companions and sidekicks. Also the fact that Obsidian prefered to add 4 sidekicks, make me think that they have enough work with announced 7 companions to do another one. and 5 million is a lot. 

[Messier-31]

The good: Lots of everything!

 

The bad: No dwarven comapnion.

 

The meh: Multiclassing.

[Guest]

The bad: No dwarven comapnion.

Dwarven sidekick though, no?

[Messier-31]

I said "companion".

 

Sidekicks are a different category.