The Deadfire Campaign & What Went Wrong

[Achilles]

Ok, not the same. I get that.

[Mygaffer]

I liked how much communication there was during the campaign, although I would now complain that it seems to have died off now that the campaign has come to a close.

 

Overall a well run campaign.

 

I want to also say that I did care about fishing and sea monsters. This is a place of islands and boats and coast line and your own base of operations is a ship. Fishing and sea monsters fit so well thematically. Also given the systems designers in this game I have to believe the fishing would have been really well done.

Edited May 3, 2017 by Mygaffer

[smjjames]

The title probably should be 'What went right and what went wrong', because the title makes it sound like the campaign was a failure, which it wasn't.

[anameforobsidian]

The Good:

• Communication, especially from Feargus.  They were out there and I would not be surprised if he wrote 500+ replies.  
• The art.  Aloth in the sand was especially impressive, but the art in general.
• The fig process.  It works about as well as kickstarter.
• Multiclass & Kits.  It'll be a lot of systems work, but it will be interesting too.  Kits themselves are probably more interesting than new classes would have been unless someone had an exceptionally strong class idea.
• Acknowledging mistakes from the first one and saying that they've already fixed some of them in the new game.
• The tech updates in general.
• They were incredibly clear about systems changes; I don't love all of them but I do respect the transparency.

 

The Bad:

• Stretchgoals.  Enough wrong here to make a mini-section  
  • They were prepped for stretchgoals this time, but the stretchgoals were stuff they were already doing.  Yeah sure, you magically found a way to do portraits for every character in two days.  Puh-leeze.
  • Stretchgoals nobody asked for.  Berath's Blessing and Double VO in particular.  The community seems to take a slightly negative stance towards spending extra on VO in particular.
  • General lack of enthusiasm towards stretchgoals.  Ydwin and the Intelligent Weapon were particularly unethusiastic.
  • They were boring enough that they went back on the announcement of a stretchgoal because it was tame.
• Sawyer was significantly less involved in the campaign.
• No new godlikes or setting appropriate subraces.  Come on.  NWN 2 added how many with each expansion?  
• Fulvano's voyage.  It lacked the creativity and spontaneity of the Endless Paths and was clearly content limited.  The last one had a cool enough design that it provided the villain for the Pillars 2. The Splintered Reef was the only really cool looking location.
• Paypal not being set up beforehand.  They should have known to do that from their experience with the Pillars 1 Kickstarter.  Didn't paypal add 100k?

 

The Ugly:

•  Is Ydwin a Yandere or Tsundere thread got 8 pages, and she's not even considered a full companion.

[sp3cw4r]

Single biggest complaint I have with the campaign was the lack of digital only rewards above the $99 tier.

 

My pledge would have been 7.5x more if higher tiers were available without the physical goods.

[ShadySands]

I got what I cared the most about, intelligent weapons. Everything​ else was gravy.

[Leferd]

I got what I cared the most about, intelligent weapons. Everything​ else was gravy.

 

Yeah, but still no singing candelabra.

 

[SonicMage117]

LOL

[LuccA]

The good:

 

- The countdown teasers were cool and the lauch trailer already has gameplay in it!

- The first stretchgoals seemed to be more thought out this time

 

The bad:

 

- I said that a number of times in the forums, but I was not a big fan of the sidekicks stretch goal. First, Feargus and Josh were talking about having lesser but deeper companions. Then, comes the sidekick stretch goal, which goes in the opposite direction of that, and now, we'll have 11 possible NPC's to join our party, 4 of them will feel incomplete and just leave us wanting more out of them (that's not good)

- Some lackluster stretchgoals by the end of the campaign

[SonicMage117]

What did you guys think of the "More voice-overs" stretch goal? I know some people were frustrated at it.

[Wormerine]

What did you guys think of the "More voice-overs" stretch goal? I know some people were frustrated at it.

I don't understand why would someone be annoyed by it. In my book, it was A perfect examples of a stretchgoal done well. I really enjoyed VO n PoE and I am happy to have more of it in the sequel. It is however an expensive thing to do and the game still works well without it. Just like an orchestral soundtrack, it adds quality and polish to the game, but it won't kill it, if it won't be reached. Happy it was there and happy that it was reached.

[smjjames]

I hope the Fulvano's Voyage island chain is available to everybody, not just backers. Though I'm not sure how they'd restrict it to backers. I've heard that it's like the endless paths of Od Nua.

 

Although it looks like the first island is the home base of the Principi.

Edited May 8, 2017 by smjjames

[TheisEjsing]

This isn't about the content of any single stretch goal as this is turning into a debate about. My personal opinion is that Obs did a great job early in the campaign, and a rather bad one in the later stages. There were next to no media coverage doing the final stages of the campaign and in the slacker period on any major gaming site. Fergus said it himself, it's like a political campaign. You can't go out guns blazing, then stop your communication and still expect to win..

I don't understand why we saw no interviews anywhere in the later stages. No headlines about the slacker backing. Communicating solely by figstarter was never going to break the final stretch goals. I love Obs, but they kept saying that a marketing plan was in motion. It just kinda never arrived... 

[smjjames]

I was just wondering about that particular stretch goal thing.

[Messier-31]

I hope the Fulvano's Voyage island chain is available to everybody, not just backers. Though I'm not sure how they'd restrict it to backers. I've heard that it's like the endless paths of Od Nua.

 

Although it looks like the first island is the home base of the Principi.

 

How on Earth did you come up with this idea?

 

Fulvano islands will be available for everyone, just as the Endless Paths of Od Nua from the first PoE  (And yes, the first island with Balefire Beacon is home to captain Furrante of the Principi sen Patrena).

 

AFAIK the only backer related content might be an item or two for those who supported the game development via Fig or PayPal during the campaign. The same story was with the first PoE: there was a ring called Gaun's Pledge, a cape of the Obsidian Order, and the little Space Pig animal companion.

Edited May 8, 2017 by Messier-31

[Wormerine]

 

I hope the Fulvano's Voyage island chain is available to everybody, not just backers. Though I'm not sure how they'd restrict it to backers. I've heard that it's like the endless paths of Od Nua.

 

Although it looks like the first island is the home base of the Principi.

 

 

How on Earth did you come up with this idea?

 

Fulvano islands will be available for everyone, just as the Endless Paths of Od Nua from the first PoE  (And yes, the first island with Balefire Beacon is home to captain Furrante of the Principi sen Patrena).

 

AFAIK the only backer related content might be an item or two for those who supported the game development via Fig or PayPal during the campaign. The same story was with the first PoE: there was a ring called Gaun's Pledge, a cape of the Obsidian Order, and the little Space Pig animal companion.

And the odd thing is that I still got all those items and an achievement even though I bought it on gog with the release of white march part 1.

[smjjames]

 

I hope the Fulvano's Voyage island chain is available to everybody, not just backers. Though I'm not sure how they'd restrict it to backers. I've heard that it's like the endless paths of Od Nua.

 

Although it looks like the first island is the home base of the Principi.

 

How on Earth did you come up with this idea?

 

Fulvano islands will be available for everyone, just as the Endless Paths of Od Nua from the first PoE  (And yes, the first island with Balefire Beacon is home to captain Furrante of the Principi sen Patrena).

 

AFAIK the only backer related content might be an item or two for those who supported the game development via Fig or PayPal during the campaign. The same story was with the first PoE: there was a ring called Gaun's Pledge, a cape of the Obsidian Order, and the little Space Pig animal companion.

 

 

Not sure how I came up with the idea, but thanks for the information.

[Sedrefilos]

What did you guys think of the "More voice-overs" stretch goal? I know some people were frustrated at it.

I'm a fan of voice-over. I'd like it if the game was 100% voiced. I don't like partial voice-over like Pilars 1 did. It's annoying and distracting. If I'm to choose between partial voice-over or no voice-over I'd go for the latter. I hope "more" voice-over though is more like full voice-over. Like all main character/quest conversations are voiced and only side-stuff left un-voiced.

[Messier-31]

 

What did you guys think of the "More voice-overs" stretch goal? I know some people were frustrated at it.

 

I'm a fan of voice-over. I'd like it if the game was 100% voiced. I don't like partial voice-over like Pilars 1 did. It's annoying and distracting. If I'm to choose between partial voice-over or no voice-over I'd go for the latter. I hope "more" voice-over though is more like full voice-over. Like all main character/quest conversations are voiced and only side-stuff left un-voiced.

 

I'm quite OK with partial VO. Listening to the same few voices in e.g. Skyrim is getting on me nerves

 

But such a 3D sandbox *needs* full voice-overs more than an isometric game. So imho:

• partial VO in Pillars - OK
• full VO in Skyrim - OK
• full VO in Original Sin Enhanced Edition - NOT OK

Edited May 9, 2017 by Messier-31

[Wormerine]

 

 

What did you guys think of the "More voice-overs" stretch goal? I know some people were frustrated at it.

 

I'm a fan of voice-over. I'd like it if the game was 100% voiced. I don't like partial voice-over like Pilars 1 did. It's annoying and distracting. If I'm to choose between partial voice-over or no voice-over I'd go for the latter. I hope "more" voice-over though is more like full voice-over. Like all main character/quest conversations are voiced and only side-stuff left un-voiced.

 

I'm quite OK with partial VO. Listening to the same few voices in e.g. Skyrim is getting on me nerves

 

But such a 3D sandbox *needs* full voice-overs more than an isometric game. So imho:

• partial VO in Pillars - OK
• full VO in Skyrim - OK
• full VO in Original Sin Enhanced Edition - NOT OK

 

awww... I did enjoy VO in D:OS a lot. It was very silly, but I prefered to listen to bad jokes rather than read them.

[Wormerine]

 

What did you guys think of the "More voice-overs" stretch goal? I know some people were frustrated at it.

I'm a fan of voice-over. I'd like it if the game was 100% voiced. I don't like partial voice-over like Pilars 1 did. It's annoying and distracting. If I'm to choose between partial voice-over or no voice-over I'd go for the latter. I hope "more" voice-over though is more like full voice-over. Like all main character/quest conversations are voiced and only side-stuff left un-voiced.

 

I am fine with partial VO as long as they will make sure there is no narration before on in the middle of recorded lines (like they already did in expansions.) 

[Messier-31]

awww... I did enjoy VO in D:OS a lot. It was very silly, but I prefered to listen to bad jokes rather than read tchem.

 

Quite.

 

But the most silly thing was about the *mute* companion that had his lines vo'd  

[smjjames]

As someone who is hard of hearing, I don't care whether there is a voice over or not, but each to their own.

[Gromnir]

obvious am not knowing what went on behind the curtain, so is possible any number o' things went wrong with the fig campaign.  however, we will concede surprise regarding how many fumbles occurred releasing stretch goals.  one assumes the details o' stretch goals woulda' been planned long in advance o' the campaign.  with the kickstarter, the obsidian developers were caught unawares by the rate o' funding and had not planned enough stretch goals in advance.  kickstarter goals were often ad hoc.  no excuse for such with the fig.  shoulda' been a pure mechanical process o' releasing stretch goals.  one would assume obsidian had a plan which took into account optimistic or pessimistic funding rates.  hit X dollars by date Y and stretch goal is Z.  hit Q dollars by date Y and stretch goal is R.  there were no reason for any mishaps or confusion regarding the fig campaign stretch goals.  we saw numerous stretch goals aborted and altered. no excuse.

 

meh.  were a relative minor thing, but does show how obsidian continues to make inexplicable errors on the business side o' game development. this weren't a kotor2 we should have gotten it in writing mistake, or  a fo:nv you get paid based on metacritic numbers blunder, but there frequent appears to be obsidian fails which strain credulity.  

 

that being said, we had no idea the fig campaign would be as successful as it was.  game sequels rare make as much money as an original title.  made sense to start off with assumption o' the fig doing less well than the kickstarter.  furthermore, inxile managed ~$3mil with their wasteland 3 fig campaign, and wasteland 3 were gonna be released on console as well as pc.  wasteland 2 kickstarter were comparable to poe. etc. our most extreme optimistic guesstimate for the poe 2 fig campaign were envisioning a $3.5 million haul.  so yeah, we thinks obsidian made mistakes with their fig campaign, but ultimately their campaign achieved results much beyond expectations.  learn from mistakes when you succeed can be a difficult thing, but regardless...

 

 

am thinking obsidian were satisfied with the results.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited May 9, 2017 by Gromnir

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I'm quite OK with partial VO. Listening to the same few voices in e.g. Skyrim is getting on me nerves

Excuse you, hearing "can't wait to count out your coin" from every 3rd bandit was the highlight of Skyrim.