Vapourware The Mandate - LOL DEAD

[rusty_shackleford]

I noticed a sudden movement from my right: my Eurogamer colleague had stopped packing and was now leaning forward in his seat, staring straight at the developers with a strange, hungry look in his eyes. He interrupted their answer: "You know, I'm not impressed by what I've seen here today. I've seen failure many times, and this looks like failure to me."

this is why people hate journalists

 

[Tito Anic]

Grimoire attempted a kickstarter, it failed.

It only took him 20 years, failed kickstarter and final trip to McDonalds to make best 2D Wizardry.

 

[Blaine]

I noticed a sudden movement from my right: my Eurogamer colleague had stopped packing and was now leaning forward in his seat, staring straight at the developers with a strange, hungry look in his eyes. He interrupted their answer: "You know, I'm not impressed by what I've seen here today. I've seen failure many times, and this looks like failure to me."

this is why people hate journalists

That's exactly what journalists SHOULD do: baldly confront their interviewees; ask hard-hitting, uncomfortable, penetrating questions; and attempt to cut through smokescreens and bullshit to reach the heart of the matter. Cozying up to interviewees and working with them to help them look good in the eyes of the public is what a propagandist would do (i.e., most modern "game journalists").

I'm not really sure what your statement even means. It's true that aggressive and competent journalists can attract hatred, but I don't think that's what you meant. Care to clarify?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

That's exactly what journalists SHOULD do: baldly confront their interviewees; ask hard-hitting, uncomfortable, penetrating questions;

…it wasn't even a question. It was a statement.
How is telling someone their project looks like a failure because they consider it to be a failure "hard-hitting"? Do you think he would have made the same statement if the game was being pitched by EA?

 

[Blaine]

That's exactly what journalists SHOULD do: baldly confront their interviewees; ask hard-hitting, uncomfortable, penetrating questions;

…it wasn't even a question. It was a statement.
How is telling someone their project looks like a failure because they consider it to be a failure "hard-hitting"? Do you think he would have made the same statement if the game was being pitched by EA?

To answer your first question, the statement you're referring to is covered by my "baldly confront" list item. After this (likely paraphrased) confrontation came the hard-hitting questions, as covered by my second list item. The developers predictably flapped and floundered their way through this interview, since they clearly had no idea how to implement their feature wish list into a coherent whole.

To answer your second question, no, I absolutely don't think he would have confronted and interrogated EA (i.e., engaged in real journalism). I think he'd like to be a real journalist, but that he is instead forced to choose between either being a propagandist or finding a different profession. If he attempted to behave as a real journalist, he'd be blacklisted out of the profession and/or fired, as happened to Jeff Gerstmann way back in 2007.

It's quite acceptable for certain classes of people to behave in an impolite and even shocking manner. Journalists (REAL journalists) are one of those classes. A journalist (even a temporary one as in this case) isn't obligated to spare the feelings of a bunch of clowns whose ludicrously ambitious feature list looks like a dumpster fire. He was clearly correct in his assessment, too, right down to the feature list being 3x too large (the final vaporware was 30% feature complete).

 

[samuraigaiden]

Kickstarter drama just sucks.

 

[Norfleet]

This was ever alive? I am pretty sure I openly stated this was obvious vaporware and scam from the beginning. Maybe if they had spent more of their time and budget actually making game instead of photoshopping promotional images for their nonexistent game.

 

[hexer]

That's exactly what journalists SHOULD do: baldly confront their interviewees; ask hard-hitting, uncomfortable, penetrating questions;

…it wasn't even a question. It was a statement.
How is telling someone their project looks like a failure because they consider it to be a failure "hard-hitting"? Do you think he would have made the same statement if the game was being pitched by EA?

He said he had seen failure many times so he was speaking from experience.
There was a good reason why he asked them that back then and he was right about doing so since his prediction came true.
I don't see a problem here

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

It was like... zero cult classic games produced with a help of Kickstarter. Grimoire, Underrail, AoD were all self found.

Paper Sorcerer is a textbook "cult classic" CRPG and was funded by Kickstarter; some Codexers would also argue for the Shadowrun games, The Banner Saga, Wasteland 2, and Serpent in the Staglands. Divinity: Original Sin, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and Divinity: Original Sin 2 can't be considered "cult classics" because they enjoyed too much commercial success.

Are there any games about becoming a space ship captain and commanding your crew on voyages of discovery?

The only one that comes to mind is Spelljammer, but I actually want to give orders to lieutenants and helmsmen.

Not exactly RPGs, but try Starflight, Starflight II, and Star Control II.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

It's quite acceptable for certain classes of people to behave in an impolite and even shocking manner. Journalists (REAL journalists) are one of those classes.

So far that's the only thing they have in common with codexers.

 

[RNGsus]

I noticed a sudden movement from my right: my Eurogamer colleague had stopped packing and was now leaning forward in his seat, staring straight at the developers with a strange, hungry look in his eyes. He interrupted their answer: "You know, I'm not impressed by what I've seen here today. I've seen failure many times, and this looks like failure to me."

 

[circuit breaker]

My art director at the time talked about it like this: "A late payment is like a cat, you can have a cat. But if you have 5 cats? That's a lot of cats."
...
During one meeting my art director passed me a sticky note covered in drawings of cats. Dozens.

I'd love to have a beer with that art director.

I hope the receiver of the sticky note is doing OK.

 

[I ASK INANE QUESTIONS]

circuit breaker

His career seems to be back on track.
What's really sad is that by looking at his portfolio I can deduce that this was likely his second or third job. This was probably the biggest and most ambitious project he's been involved with up to that point, and it ended in a disaster.
And as sad as it is, it's also not that unusual. Many a Greg has gone down with the ship because the captain was an absolute retard.

 

[FritzedProcess]

To be honest, when I backed this shitshow the scope looked feasible; pretty much a mix of FTL and X-COM. Planetary exploration missions don't have to be full sized planets with every nook and cranny, you know. More of an abstraction of it, as seen in other games (Out There), which would have been a reasonable expectation.

I kind of tuned out of it because I had better things to do, until after several years they showed the retarded Battlefleet Gothic clone prototype. That was the moment I knew the project was FUBAR.

 

[Chunkyman]

Yeah I backed it as I wanted a higher end FTL, which is what it seemed like they were going for. I understand that things can wind up going under and you end up not fulfilling your promises, but I am annoyed that there was zero response from devs and the project was blatantly dead and yet the website was up for years and apparently still accepted donations. That alone is totally vile, and makes the accusations of "scam" (which people like the wildly overuse) plausible.

At least Star Citizen's alpha is fun (who knows if it will ever be fully complete), and I hear Star Sector is really fun, so at least there is some games fulfilling this desire to be a starship captain.

 

[Blaine]

Yeah I backed it as I wanted a higher end FTL, which is what it seemed like they were going for. I understand that things can wind up going under and you end up not fulfilling your promises, but I am annoyed that there was zero response from devs and the project was blatantly dead and yet the website was up for years and apparently still accepted donations. That alone is totally vile, and makes the accusations of "scam" (which people like the wildly overuse) plausible.

At least Star Citizen's alpha is fun (who knows if it will ever be fully complete), and I hear Star Sector is really fun, so at least there is some games fulfilling this desire to be a starship captain.

Yeah, Starsector is breddy gud. It could easily be a complete game already, but more features are being added to expand the game's scope (they recently added player-owned colonies and factions alongside in-depth concomitant mechanics), albeit slowly.

 

[Grimwulf]

Are there any games about becoming a space ship captain and commanding your crew on voyages of discovery?

The only one that comes to mind is Spelljammer, but I actually want to give orders to lieutenants and helmsmen.

Prospector is the game you're looking for. No other space roguelike surpassed this gem, for me at least. Crew management, ship management, stuff management, combined with planet exploration and constant feeling of discovery and wonder, goddamn. Brings so much memories.

Even did a LP here in Playground ages ago. It's lost due to my inability to pick a proper image hoster. Still have a few random screenshots saved, tho:

Spoiler

 

[Morkar Left]

Are there any games about becoming a space ship captain and commanding your crew on voyages of discovery?

The only one that comes to mind is Spelljammer, but I actually want to give orders to lieutenants and helmsmen.

Stellar Tactics

Star Traders Frontiers

Planet's Edge

Are there any games about becoming a space ship captain and commanding your crew on voyages of discovery?

The only one that comes to mind is Spelljammer, but I actually want to give orders to lieutenants and helmsmen.

Prospector is the game you're looking for. No other space roguelike surpassed this gem, for me at least. Crew management, ship management, stuff management, combined with planet exploration and constant feeling of discovery and wonder, goddamn. Brings so much memories.

Even did a LP here in Playground ages ago. It's lost due to my inability to pick a proper image hoster. Still have a few random screenshots saved, tho:

It's a shame development seems to have stopped...

Last build

 

[Blaine]

Even did a LP here in Playground ages ago. It's lost due to my inability to pick a proper image hoster.

No such thing, really. Most of them will quietly delete your old shit after a few weeks and/or months. The best option is to host your own storage or upload directly to the Codex, although the 1 MB limitation here is a pain in the ass.

 

[Grimwulf]

It's a shame development seems to have stopped...

Naaah, it's just the way Magellan rolls. Sometimes he goes on a 3+ year hiatus, but he comes back eventually.