Project Eternity, developed by Obsidian Entertainment Kickstart for those interested.

Daggah said:
OK, say I have a KS project and I give every Joe Schmoe that donates $20 developer forum access. Now I've got a huge group of Joe Schmoes all trying to tell me how to make my game. Guess what? I'm not going to listen to most of those Joe Schmoes. Again, your $20-$50 donation does not give you a voice in the development process. If the developer is stupid enough to think it does, then you already threw your money away on a shitty game.
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Great argument, except that it's completely wrong because Endless Space doesn't suck at all. The other games I have dev access to are shaping up nicely as well and I'm excited to see how they turn out. My money did indeed give me a say in the development process and your "no, it didn't" claim is specious at best. Show me an instance where the developers refused to acknowledge the comments of people who paid to be a part of the process or something. I made actual suggestions about the user interface of ES that were implemented exactly as I described, and I voted on a number of changes to other elements proposed by other users that made it into the game. As a result, the game is better when compared with the earlier beta builds before changes were made.

Daggah said:
Because, as I said before, Kickstarter is the monetization of indie gaming, which is a terribly unfortunate occurrence. Crowd-funding encourages greed and emotional manipulation, but the "shut up and take my money crowd" won't remove head from ass long enough to see it.
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But how does that make a difference to you as the player? How does it affect your enjoyment of the final product in any way at all? You are still wearing the "businessman" or "economist" hat. Take it off and put on the "player" hat and tell me how the original funding source changes the product in a negative way. I have offered good evidence of how it has influenced games that I have played in a positive way, but all of your arguments rely on theoretical happenings that you are unable to back up with real examples. If something bad happened to you and you contributed to a project that failed, you can just come out and say it, it's not like anyone is going to hold it against you, and the actual evidence will help bolster your arguments.
 
We might just have to rename this the Daggah "I want to whine about Kickstarter and Crowdfunding" thread ... since we have the other Project Eternity thread in PC Gaming section :)
 
Derangel said:
Bastion isn't an indie title. It was published by a major studio, WB Games. Beyond that you're pointing to the diamonds in the rough. Of the tens of thousands of indie titles released each year only a small handful are worth playing and even less than that have remotely the production value of even an A or AA title.
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I said small-budget/indie front. Didn't say Bastion was an indie title. Though a redditor did tell me tonight that the only reason Bastion was published by WB was because they needed a publisher for XBLA. Dunno if that's true though.
 
CEpeep said:
But how does that make a difference to you as the player? How does it affect your enjoyment of the final product in any way at all? You are still wearing the "businessman" or "economist" hat. Take it off and put on the "player" hat and tell me how the original funding source changes the product in a negative way.
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The irony here is that the gamer hat is exactly the hat I'm wearing when I made that comment. I don't want indie games produced and driven by greed. I want indie games developed and produced by people who have a passion for game-making. I want developers who aren't in it for money. I want indie games by developers who never ask themselves, "can I afford to make this game?" I want them to just fucking make it. Kickstarter fucks ALL of that up.

I have offered good evidence of how it has influenced games that I have played in a positive way, but all of your arguments rely on theoretical happenings that you are unable to back up with real examples. If something bad happened to you and you contributed to a project that failed, you can just come out and say it, it's not like anyone is going to hold it against you, and the actual evidence will help bolster your arguments.
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You have offered anecdotal experiences. That's all you have. I've got thirty years of gaming history devoid of crowd-funded panhandling to point to. Sure, it's anecdotal evidence too. It's just a fuckload more of it.
 
Daggah said:
I want indie games by developers who never ask themselves, "can I afford to make this game?" I want them to just fucking make it. Kickstarter fucks ALL of that up.
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Those people are still making games and still will keep making games. I also want that guy with a great idea who has three kids and a home mortgage to worry about to still be able to make some games too.

Daggah said:
You have offered anecdotal experiences. That's all you have. I've got thirty years of gaming history devoid of crowd-funded panhandling to point to. Sure, it's anecdotal evidence too. It's just a fuckload more of it.
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Yeah, exactly that. You have evidence completely devoid of anything relevant to crowdfunding itself. This is akin to using evidence of why horse and buggy is a good method of transportation as an argument against the automobile. Instead, you should try to find evidence of how crowdfunding itself has destroyed or ruined something you liked instead of just using things that happened before its popularization as an example of why it is bad. "Things were fine before, so they should stay that way" is an argument that holds no water. How about an example of a game that you were looking forward to that was ruined because of a Kickstarter campaign?
 
Daggah said:
I said small-budget/indie front. Didn't say Bastion was an indie title. Though a redditor did tell me tonight that the only reason Bastion was published by WB was because they needed a publisher for XBLA. Dunno if that's true though.
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That might be true. They were pretty far along by the time WB came in and offered to publish it. I wonder what the development cost of Bastion ended up being, though that would be pretty hard to figure out since the developers weren't exactly paying themselves while making it. That's another big difference between something like that and something like PE or other Kickstarters from established studios, they have to actually pay employees to make games which does drastically bump up the development cost. Still I don't see any way Obsidian could have self funded and I can't think of any publisher willing to risk the money they wanted plus allow Obsidian to actually have full control. There are some smaller publishers I could see willing to get behind a something like PE but likely wouldn't or couldn't afford to fully fund it and Obsidian isn't exactly rolling in money (Well....A month ago they weren't). Outside of Alpha Protocol, which did poorly, Obsidian has done nothing but work for other companies on projects they're hired to do. If Obsidian was a mainstream recognized studio I could see maybe them getting more opportunities to make this from other sources, but they're not.
 
Kickstarter debates aside for a moment, I believe it is premature to say that Obsidian is in it for the money.

Obsidian has never, as far as I am aware, self-published. They are a relatively small company made up primarily of developers, artists, and etc., all the way up to the majority of their executives and the CEO. Many of these persons may have years of running a company under their belts, but they are still gamers and role players. This stands in stark contrast to many publishing companies where their employees are predominately marketing and sales, the business side versus the creative side of game development.

I believe there is some merit to the above, lending credence to the idea that Obsidian cares past any monetary gain.

So while nothing is certain, and time will tell all eventually, there is a certain appeal here.

As for Kickstarter, crowd funding in this manner is nascent. We do not truly know where it will go or how well or if the model will work, but it is a model. There is still supply and demand, otherwise all Kickstarter projects would succeed and be funded equally.

There certainly is capitalism at work here. How could there not be when pure capitalism is the absence of regulation? The Kickstarter model itself is competing against traditional sales and funding models in much that same way that the hosted projects may later compete for sales against the market as well as compete among each other and backers' wallets in their proposal phases.

As for Obsidian choosing to host a proposal on Kickstarter, if you, as an individual, previously had a bad experience, would you seek to recreate this experience, or would you seek another option? Obsidian was treated poorly on multiple occasions by publishers, and they decided that this time they would try something new. This "new thing" happened to be Kickstarter. They tried something new, and it worked out for them. Personally, I see no harm here.

I'm excited for Project Eternity, and if it does not live up to expectations, then fine. I am out whatever money I donated, and I have lived and learned.

Others will have also lived and learned, and a year, two, or etc. from now Kickstarter may thrive or suffer because of it.
 
Daggah said:
The irony here is that the gamer hat is exactly the hat I'm wearing when I made that comment. I don't want indie games produced and driven by greed. I want indie games developed and produced by people who have a passion for game-making. I want developers who aren't in it for money. I want indie games by developers who never ask themselves, "can I afford to make this game?" I want them to just fucking make it. Kickstarter fucks ALL of that up.
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I don't think KS fosters greed and I think it answers your "can I afford to make this game" question ... I wouldn't want to see platformers or simple games that actually can be created by a small group of developers with minimal funding but for some games they would require too many compromises or too much time to do without the mechanism of crowd funding.

I have only supported two projects so far, the first Grim Dawn is an Action RPG using the Titan Quest engine (a game I love) ... the developer (just a couple of guys) was already turned down by at least one publisher and had to buy the rights to the engine on his own ... he had his friends working on the game in their free time while they supported themselves with their "day jobs" ... the KS funding they received (about 500K) has allowed them to hire artists and programmers full time so they can develop a game with the quality and scale I would like to see ... it is possible they might have been able to do this title without KS but they would have taken years or they would have had to compromise the size and quality to get something out to generate income to make more improvements

The other project I have supported is the Project Eternity ... in this case there isn't a big interest in folks making a Baldur's Gate style RPG using hard core D&D style rules and the 2D isometric graphics that made BG a work of art ... Obsidian (the developer) just finished laying off a portion of their workforce earlier in the year ... they might have been able to get a publisher (large or small) to eventually support them but they would have had to sell their souls to get that support ... the KS allows them to make a quality game and possibly create a franchise of their own to continue the RPG legacy they were a part of a decade back ... they have sufficiently talented managers and programmers that I am confident they will try to deliver a quality product

If really big publishers come to KS looking for money I would view those requests with a grain of salt ... but I am okay supporting a small developer (and Oblivion is still small) to develop a product I would like to see and that the market is not currently offering ... to me KS is not about reducing risk for the publisher, it is about voting with my dollars ... in the current Indie and publisher driven market I can only vote for the finished product choices they give me ... with KS and crowd funding I can vote before the product is developed to indicate my desire for a product that doesn't exist ... this might inspire other developers to make similar products or develop for some of the other genres I don't see much work in these days (RTS and TBS games)

:cool:
 
Daggah said:
Yeah...no, you're not. Your $20-$50 donation is not a voice in the development process. :rolleyes:

P.S. I'm also 99% against preorders.
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Your voice is a vote, small but it's there. But even a donation without a single forum post is an investment, because when you fund a clearly articulated project your money is voicing approval of the type of game being created. Every purchase of Call of Duty is an expression to the publishers too.

And yes, donating to a kickstarter project is an investment. There are things more valuable than money that we invest in. Investing in the proliferation of a certain kind of art, investing in an idealogy, or investing in someone's life. In this case it's investing in a type of game that is extremely rare now a days (which can be considered an idealology, something many people want to see more of in games). Project Eternity is a risk/reward investment and if it pays off it will reward us something money couldn't buy if there was no such kickstarter.

Daggah said:
Because, as I said before, Kickstarter is the monetization of indie gaming, which is a terribly unfortunate occurrence. Crowd-funding encourages greed and emotional manipulation, but the "shut up and take my money crowd" won't remove head from ass long enough to see it.
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Malicious manipulation CAN happen with kickstarter projects. Wasn't there a KS for $50k for a Skyrim sized game with Crysis graphics? It happens in various facets of life. But that doesn't take away from those with honest intent. Do you believe Obsidian doesn't have what it takes to reward it's investors? Do you believe everyone on kickstarter is out to get you? The emotions for Project Eternity are excitement. And if it pays off (risk/reward) then the excited emotions will pay off long after the final patch and the final expansion pack.
 
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Your voice is a vote, small but it's there. But even a donation without a single forum post is an investment, because when you fund a clearly articulated project your money is voicing approval of the type of game being created. Every purchase of Call of Duty is an expression to the publishers too.
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Utterly naive. Yes, technically every time I purchase a Coke Zero, that's a vote too, but that doesn't make it a meaningful one in any way. :rolleyes: Simple fact is, gamers are idiots (see: the success of Kickstarter) so any developer that actually tried to listen to every single person who donated to their Kickstarter campaign would quickly go crazy. At the very least, they'd produce an utterly terrible game.

And yes, donating to a kickstarter project is an investment. There are things more valuable than money that we invest in. Investing in the proliferation of a certain kind of art, investing in an idealogy, or investing in someone's life. In this case it's investing in a type of game that is extremely rare now a days (which can be considered an idealology, something many people want to see more of in games). Project Eternity is a risk/reward investment and if it pays off it will reward us something money couldn't buy if there was no such kickstarter.
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Once again, it's not an investment. It's a donation.

And you're once again assuming that the game won't be made without Kickstarter, that it never would have. That's a stupid assumption because you simply don't know what would have happened without Kickstarter. Plenty of niche titles have been made over the course of gaming history without crowd-funding, so quit fucking acting like without Kickstarter, none of these games would be possible. If there's a will, there's a way, to quote the cliche, and there's clearly a demand for this kind of title from gamers.
 
Daggah said:
Utterly naive. Yes, technically every time I purchase a Coke Zero, that's a vote too, but that doesn't make it a meaningful one in any way. :rolleyes: Simple fact is, gamers are idiots (see: the success of Kickstarter) so any developer that actually tried to listen to every single person who donated to their Kickstarter campaign would quickly go crazy. At the very least, they'd produce an utterly terrible game.
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You don't understand what we mean by voting. We are not referring to the person's ability to suggest changes. Although there are many KS people who want to voice their opinions the developer is responsible for sorting through all that and separating the wheat from the chaff. What we are referring to, and even you acknowledge it with your opposition to preorders, is voting with our purchase. If I buy a product I am voting to support that product. If I buy Coke Zero (Yuck) instead of Diet Coke (Yum) I am indicating to the market my preference for a typical type of product. If lots of other people do that also the market tends to adjust to align to the people's desire. As you said earlier, THAT is good capitalism.

However, there are few mechanisms for me to vote for something that is not on the menu. If developers did a survey of what game they would make I would indicate my preference that way. Since they do not, then I can use KS to indicate my preference for a certain type of game. I can skip the games that I don't want or that I think are better represented in the general market. As I noted earlier I actually prefer corporate offerings, when they are available, over independent offerings (I like big budgets and lots of features). Unfortunately I hate multi-player, which seems to be the direction that all the publishers want to go. Again, my preference would be that an Intel or NVidia start a fund to pay for these games. It would allow more big budget offerings and might help those two companies, which I like, establish market share and minimize their competition.

As others have noted, change is good in any industry, just because it has always been done that way doesn't mean it needs to continue to be that way. Cars are noisier and have more pollution than horses but they let us go further and faster. I don't know if KS is the dawn of a new gaming funding mechanism or not, but it has allowed me to support two games that would have had difficulty being made and to try and insure that they have sufficient depth and quality to be products I will enjoy for years. :cool:
 
Instead of feeding into obvious trolling "attempts" by Daggah and his anti-crowdfunding beliefs (which so far has landed in a many valid points being made by everyone but Daggah) and start talking about the actual game and the fact that one of the best and most well respected RPG development group is finally going to be releasing a game that isn't forced directive but something fresh and hopefully more akin in storytelling to games of the past.

I donated and frankly can't wait to see the results. Its an exciting time for all these opportunities thanks to crowdfunding , lets hope the pay off is just as well. The next few years may be a small boon for originality in PC games versus the dredge of FPS releases that recycle vomit as if it tasted good.
 
They did sort out the Mega Dungeon levels finally ... we will get 15 levels in the Mega Dungeon ... depending on how big they make the levels that could be a game in itself :)
 
Daggah said:
Utterly naive. Yes, technically every time I purchase a Coke Zero, that's a vote too, but that doesn't make it a meaningful one in any way. :rolleyes: Simple fact is, gamers are idiots (see: the success of Kickstarter) so any developer that actually tried to listen to every single person who donated to their Kickstarter campaign would quickly go crazy. At the very least, they'd produce an utterly terrible game.
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If I you gave me $25 dollars, it's meaningful. Giving that to Apple loses it's meaning. But there is meaning, and coke zero would be gone if no one bought it.

Daggah said:
Once again, it's not an investment. It's a donation.
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And that's your refutation of my point that investments are more than money.

Daggah said:
And you're once again assuming that the game won't be made without Kickstarter, that it never would have. That's a stupid assumption because you simply don't know what would have happened without Kickstarter. Plenty of niche titles have been made over the course of gaming history without crowd-funding, so quit fucking acting like without Kickstarter, none of these games would be possible. If there's a will, there's a way, to quote the cliche, and there's clearly a demand for this kind of title from gamers.
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That stuff won't come from that traditional publisher/dev model. And the "guys getting together in their basement" won't be able to pull off the same type thing as a studio of Obsidian's reputation. Now if project eternity is a success, then maybe publishers will go for this type game now.

I don't think every person in their basement who wants to make a game should be successful. But that doesn't mean guys like Obsidian shouldn't start kickstarter. Obsidian is in no place to make a game they want without asking the people for money.
 
Daggah said:
...Simple fact is, gamers are idiots....
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According to that definition you would also be an idiot. You apparently play several different games:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1039157505#post1039157505
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1039146558#post1039146558
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1039237610#post1039237610
etc...

Regardless, it's obvious you don't seriously have an opinion either way about Kickstarter and are just trying to stir things up a bit (which I agree can sometimes make the forum more interesting). In this case however you just sound silly, so check out Parmenides thread and let the rest of us idiots continue to enjoy the prospect of having a new BG-like RPG to play in the near future.
 
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Daggah said:
<deleted>
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Definition of investment: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/investment

You give Obsidian KS $20, you profit in the way of a game, thus you are the one twisting the definition of "investment."

Here is a link to an interview, in this interview Brian Fargo explains how every publisher he went to said "no" to wasteland 2," kinda destroys your argument about KS doesn't allowi the creation of games that otherwise wouldn't of been made. http://www.nowgamer.com/features/1573882/brian_fargo_interview_wasteland_2_kickstarter_unity_3d.html
 
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Artificiary said:
Regardless, it's obvious you don't seriously have an opinion either way about Kickstarter
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No he does, he hates it, and expresses that in pretty much every KS thread. He seems to think everyone else is just a poor misguided soul that can't understand that the money they put towards a KS project might not yield any results. It gets rather annoying but it is what it is.
 
darkstarcow said:
Definition of investment: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/investment

You give Obsidian KS $20, you profit in the way of a game, thus you are the one twisting the definition of "investment."
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Then I suppose yesterday, when I went to starbucks, I invested in a coffee rather than purchased one. :rolleyes:

Here is a link to an interview, in this interview Brian Fargo explains how every publisher he went to said "no" to wasteland 2," kinda destroys your argument about KS doesn't allowi the creation of games that otherwise wouldn't of been made. http://www.nowgamer.com/features/1573882/brian_fargo_interview_wasteland_2_kickstarter_unity_3d.html
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Then find some other way to fund it. Venture capitalists, loans, whatever. One guy being unable to convince publishers hardly destroys my argument. Were you there for his presentation? Maybe he fucking sucks at making a sales pitch. The existence of a vast number of indie and small publisher/small budget titles from the last five years that somehow found a way to exist builds a better foundation for my argument than one interview with one guy for one title does to "destroy" it. :rolleyes:
 
That's enough. This thread is for discussion of the game, not another tired debate on the merits of the Kickstarter platform. If you disregard that from here on out, expect to be dealt with.
 
Maybe it's because it's still in development, but I'm really not that impressed with the animations so far. Doesn't really seem like an improvement over something like Diablo 2.
 
Yea, that's pre-alpha. Animations will be polished. Everything else looks very nice.
 
if anyone backed this, make sure you update your sub.

https://eternity.obsidian.net/

Project Update #70: New Year Project Update said:
Backer Info

Just a reminder to all of our backers, if you have not done so already, please head to the Backer Portal and complete your order. All backers need to go through the process so they can receive their rewards - even those that only have digital goods.

To start the process, click on "Manage My Pledge Now" and click on the "Select Reward" button on the pledge management screen. From here, you may select the tier you backed (or upgrade to a new tier), select additional add-ons, fill out any shipping information, and file your surveys.

Also, please make sure you fill out your surveys as soon as you can. If you have an NPC, item, inn, or portrait the sooner you get the information to us, the sooner we can make sure it gets into the game.

If you are having any issues, e-mail us at [email protected] and we'll help you out quickly.
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I'll admit I didn't back this game, but I'm really surprised the backers are not upset over not seeing footage. Journalist saw it at E3, but not the people who paid for it. Kind of a slap in the face.
 
bigdogchris said:
I'll admit I didn't back this game, but I'm really surprised the backers are not upset over not seeing footage. Journalist saw it at E3, but not the people who paid for it. Kind of a slap in the face.
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meh, not interested in spoilers. I didn't take great offense. I my mind, they already sold me. It's over, I just want the best game possible at this point. The hype is for people who aren't bought in. The media can help with that better, which in turn results in more non-backers buying this game after the fact. And that helps with the momentum for the expansion pack (which I also payed for).
 
Looks like a modern Baldur's Gate I missed this kickstarter totally.....
What is the projected release date?
 
I'm backing both this and Wasteland 2 and I'm avoiding all emails, videos, and news about the games. I want to play the final product and that's what I'll judge them on.
 
Comixbooks said:
Looks like a modern Baldur's Gate I missed this kickstarter totally.....
What is the projected release date?
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That's exactly what they are going for. The original release date was early 2014, but it was pushed back to late 2014. As far as we know it's on track.

You can read about the current state of the project here.
 
If this was a MMO it would take off like Ultima Online but I'm sure they don't have that type of complex in game mechanics to make it a MMO.

It just took a little more then a Decade to get good top down bird eye view games with 3-D graphics.
Since 2-D sprites were phased out.
 
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