KickStarter The Banner Saga 3

[Infinitron]

 

[LESS T_T]

Producer Zeb West: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zeb-west-b021637/

Narrative Designer, Worldbuilding & Lore
Dates Employed Jan 2019 – Present
Employment Duration 5 mos
Location Berkeley, CA

Building the fantasy world for Stoic's new unannounced project.

 

[anvi]

This whole series proves just how many story fags there are.

 

[Falksi]

Just finish the trilogy. Enjoyed it, but it could be a real slog at times too. The 3rd entry's decision to drop supplies & get to the combat quicker is a welcome change of pace which works well.

It did leave me feeling unsatisfied though, and the 3rd installment felt rushed. All the build up never really delivered any "wow" moments.

Combat became heavily reliant on a handful of characters too. On the plus side it did have a more balanced & interesting feel to it, but on the downside I felt literally 5 or 6 characters from each party were worth the trouble.

Also, the entire trilogy has fucking awful music IMO.

I'll prob play through it again one day, but no time soon.

 

[Abu Antar]

Damn. The music in the first game is great, imo.

 

[Infinitron]

Also, the entire trilogy has fucking awful music IMO.

Can't argue with taste, I guess...

 

[Brainlet2]

The third game is always the weakest of the trilogy

 

[LESS T_T]

Stoic is growing, now it has another office in Seattle and is working on "its most ambitious project": https://stoicstudio.com/job-hr-recruiting-manager/

You will foster the culture and professional health of our growing, cross-disciplinary team of 17, joining diverse creatives including Artists, Programmers, Designers, Producers, and others.

Stoic is embarking on its most ambitious project, and will be hiring dozens of new employees over the next 2 years. You will be responsible for recruiting, screening, and facilitating the interviews of diverse candidates. You will work with the rest of the team to develop ideal job descriptions and postings, and manage the financial and temporal budget for doing so.

3 year development with dozens of developers? Looks like they're going into AA territory. According to the credits of Banner Saga 3, they only had about a dozen of developers.

Maybe they're going to join the "Third Wave", making a full-pledged RPG.

 

[jewboy]

The cartoon graphics are polarizing at the very least. I can't play a game with graphics like that. Makes my eyes bleed and eye cancer would certainly be something I'd worry about. From the posted clip the music sounds kind of interesting. I like violins and violin like instrument sounds, but more in the vein of Lux Aeterna by Clint Mansell. Did they ever explain why they decided to go with graphics like that?

 

[Ivan]

full-pledged

full-fledged*

 

[LESS T_T]

From new job posting for Executive Producer: https://stoicstudio.com/job-executive-producer/

You will help us build a live operations expertise and grow our studio capabilities.

Hire, build, and manage our Service Operation teams for Release Management, Live Operations, Community Management, and Testing

Sounds like a live service project.

 

[LESS T_T]

Oh they're posting bunch of them, they just spell it. It's "an online multiplayer game using Unreal Engine 4."

DevOps Programmer https://stoicstudio.com/job-devops-programmer/

You will support the development of infrastructure technology and process for our new project, an online multiplayer game using Unreal Engine 4 on the client side and a variety of cloud technologies on the backend.

Systems Designer https://stoicstudio.com/job-systems-designer/

As a Systems Designer, you will be responsible for designing and balancing across a range of different systems, including combat, itemization and character progression.

Professional experience with Unreal

• (bonus) MMO or online game experience
• (bonus) Live game experience

Jr. Quality Assurance Engineer https://stoicstudio.com/job-jr-quality-assurance-engineer/

Server Engineer (UE4) https://stoicstudio.com/job-server-engineer-ue4/

Client Gameplay Engineer (UE4) https://stoicstudio.com/job-client-gameplay-engineer-ue4/

 

[Infinitron]

Soon? https://stoicstudio.com/banner-saga-6years-anniversary/

BANNER SAGA RELEASE ANNIVERSARY

John: 6 years ago, Banner Saga was released on Steam. It launched on the tail end of more than 2 years of the hardest work we had ever done.

Arnie: Of the two tough years the second and final year was the toughest. It was basically a ‘crunch mode’ for an entire year. I went through long stretches of waking up at 5:00am, working a few hours, then going in to work with the other guys until 12:00pm. Weekends meant I could get more done because I didn’t have to commute in and back from the office and I worked later into the night.

Alex: It was an intense time. We were doing everything ourselves, from gameplay development, to running a kickstarter, community management and operating a business. On top of that, we were trying to make a game that felt like a big Bioware-level production with story, multiple systems, dozens of characters and classes – with only three full-time developers.

John: We had largely finished it before the Solstice holiday, and upon return to our development shack spend the next 2 weeks preparing for launch: setting up promotional materials, Steam configurations, final rounds of testing and a few more little bugfixes. We were relieved to see that players received it well and it sold strongly.

Arnie: Haha… we did all our own customer service. I remember listening to John say “Yes. Yes thanks for the feedback. Nope, I’m John Watson, I’m working on it right now actually. Yes – really.” We did our damn best to handle all the bugs, feedback and login snafu’s that players were having.

John: Within a few days we had broken even on the previous 2 years’ investment, which was good because all 3 of us were deep in financial holes (I had $50k of credit card debt), had spent our life savings, and we owed 2 of our contractors quite a bit of money for work done in good faith during the Banner Saga: Factions days.

Arnie: There is something oddly freeing about betting your entire life savings and then some. It’s kinda like burning a bridge and there’s only one way to go, forward. I found it energizing in its focus.

John: Right about that time, a legal challenge from King over the trademark of ‘Banner Saga‘ came to a head. For over 6 months, we had been blocked from trademarking the name of the game. King made the offer to own the trademark, but ‘let us use it’. Uh, no. It ended up working out well, King treated us properly, and no hard feelings resulted.

Arnie: I think the King debacle actually helped with sales. In Europe people knew us more for that than Banner Saga.

Alex: Launching that first game was an absolute test of willpower. Health-wise I was spent. I had to take a much longer break than Arnie and John, and by then they had moved onto the second game in the trilogy.

John: We were totally exhausted, and all took much needed breaks. I went to Europe for a few weeks and did some other traveling. But before long we were back at it, localizing the game and porting to mobile, and then console.

Alex: I filled the time with a side-project, then heard that the third game was having trouble early in development. They needed a writer. There were so many concepts and plot threads to try and pull into a final, satisfying package, it was a tremendous challenge. That said, I was incredibly thankful to be able to come back and finish the third game and the story that I had set out to write back when it was just a gleam in our eyes to make our own game.

John: Over 4 more years of work, and we had finished the whole trilogy and released the final DLCs that we had sketched out in our original Kickstarter – 7 years in all from inception to completion.

Alex: Seven years after we first set out in metaphorical longships to create our own game dev studio, we’ve seen other developers come and go. We’ve seen the coming of the “indie apocalypse” and felt how hard it is to make a living doing your own games. And we’re still here and going strong! Stoic’s continuing to grow bigger than it’s ever been before, and we’re wading heavily into a new project with new ambitions and aspirations. We can’t wait to be able to talk more about it soon and we hope you’ll come along with us to a new world, with new stories to tell in a new game.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

the banner saga 1+2 are like 90% off, almost free

Are they worth like 2.50 cents?

 

[anvi]

Maybe if you like reading a lot.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

Maybe if you like reading a lot.

I watched a couple minutes of the 1st one, it actually looked pretty just from an artistic perspective, even if I was just to enjoy it as a talking book. But I am not sure how long I would actually enjoy that. I can watch a movie. I am not sure any video game in history is good enough to actually sit an watch.

 

[ItsChon]

the banner saga 1+2 are like 90%, almost free

Are they worth like 2.50 cents?

The tactical combat is actually nice, and while I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's the second coming of JA2 or whatever, there are some fun fights to be had. Pair that with some good writing, great art and music, and you've got a good time.

 

[anvi]

Maybe if you like reading a lot.

I watched a couple minutes of the 1st one, it actually looked pretty just from an artistic perspective, even if I was just to enjoy it as a talking book. But I am not sure how long I would actually enjoy that. I can watch a movie. I am not sure any video game in history is good enough to actually sit an watch.

Have you played Blackguards?

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

Maybe if you like reading a lot.

I watched a couple minutes of the 1st one, it actually looked pretty just from an artistic perspective, even if I was just to enjoy it as a talking book. But I am not sure how long I would actually enjoy that. I can watch a movie. I am not sure any video game in history is good enough to actually sit an watch.

Have you played Blackguards?

yes, I played blackguards and enjoyed it

 

[Infinitron]

The Banner Saga games do not have a lot of reading, that's one of anvi's strange opinions. It's not what should concern you if you intend to play these games. Their combat system is unusual and at least in the first game you may find that the scenarios get repetitive. My guess is that you won't like them, but you can try. At 90% off it's worth it.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

The Banner Saga games do not have a lot of reading, that's one of anvi's strange opinions. It's not what should concern you if you intend to play these games. Their combat system is unusual and at least in the first game you may find that the scenarios get repetitive. My guess is that you won't like it.

reading would not put me off a game though. I would assume I would find the game sort of tactically shallow after awhile, but that for $2.50 it might be worth a few hours enjoyment as I really do like the artwork and the atmosphere I have seen, I would not be very upset in any case no matter what.

 

[anvi]

Get Age of Wonders 3 instead. Best game ever.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

Get Age of Wonders 3 instead. Best game ever.

bought the entire set and all DLC on discount and played it already. I liked it, although the end game was sort of crazy, but end games of all those types of games are.

 

[Ninjerk]

Banner Saga isn't actually written terribly, but the overall story of the first game (the only one I've played so far) is kind of strange.

I really think with some tweaks that their format could kill it in online format (look at how many people play HS for the turn-based strategy aspect and dumb autochess games based on mobas).

 

[fantadomat]

Maybe if you like reading a lot.

You mean "If you can read"