Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

I think there are two trends for gaming kickstarters at the moment. On the one hand you have guys like Crate and Stoic asking for money while showing a real, physical yet albeit very early product. On the other you have guys like Inexile and Obsidian doing campaigns with basically nothing to go on except words.

You can bet money (if you have any left) that the expectations and therefore overall gauging of the success of these games will be vastly different.

I think part of the difference comes in the make ups of the companies as well. Stoic and Crate are both small, definitely indie devs. Inexile (I think) and Obsidian are much larger. This has a big effect on how they will approach something like this and means they are far less likely to put a whole lot of work in without some kind of ROI model established.

If Obsidian or Inexile stuffs up, that will be the end of KS campaigns that say "trust us guize!!!" and these companies will lose a LOT of that reputation they used to get pledges. That shit is a once use wand with no fucking cool downs.

 

It's true. Fargo has charisma. Well at least compared to Feargus. And Fargo seems trustworthy somehow. He also really knows how to throw a kickstarter.

 

You know, if Obsidian had shown us a single piece of concept art on the same level of quality as this one, I'd be sold, no further questions asked or vitriol vomited:



Authentically realistic, functional, dramatic, classy, not-sexist, professional and nostalgic.

Their concept art so far is the epitome of BSB. Looks like done by retarded pre-teens recruited from Deviant Art for junk food and a pat on the back.

And they hope to make a game similar to IE in feel. Not gonna happen with the crappy artists they got LOL.

 

Fine. So "screenshots" is too much to ask from Obsidian, even if others were better prepared and could show prototypes for their games: FTL, Grimdawn, Legends of Eisenwald, Blackspace ... and so on.
Then, why there is not one artwork as interesting as the ones from Wasteland2 KS campaign?

 

Fargo actually made me excited about an upcoming game for once. I don't think I've been really excited about an game since I used to read the manuals on the way home on the bus.

 

That's why I have faith in these kickstarters. The devs now that their reputation is at stake here, so they will do their best to make something worthy.

 

Their concept artists are shit. If you can't make purple dildo magic look cool you did something wrong.
NEXT!

Maybe there's a way to tell them this. Hey, you guys, are you reading this shit? Your concept art so far blows compared to something that GoodBrush guy would draw, or what we've seen in W2. Fix plz!

 

By the way, this bit caught my attention from the RPS interview:

They have 50K backers. While it's an impressive amount of backers for a Kickstarter project, it's pretty abysmal number of people to associate with their success in the industry. To the contrary, it would only show that their success in the industry is inflated by publisher-ensured sales. If they were owned by a publisher, they would be closed down a week after releasing a game that only sold around 50K units.

Though I doubt that a lot of people who have bought several Obsidian titles even know about this Kickstarter project to begin with and believe that far more people would support it if only they knew.

 

I think you are too harsh. These pictures are just simple sketches, not full blown concept arts, which can be shown early during the KS. They are not jaw dropping, but look OK. As for W2....how many time did it take them to show a quality concept art? Think about that a moment.

 

Nothing against your other points, but I kinda doubt that. Solely because you don't actually carry a big ass axt in one hand and a big ass sword? in the other like its nothing while wearing full armor. Except if you are a monster and that girl doesn't really look the part.

 

Sure, I'm using hyperbole. I don't think it's complete garbage but I'm just trying to convey none of the art we've seen so far confers that promise of adventure and mood that, say, the scorpion-tank in the green, thick jungle did. Now that was a great image! Something like that would really look good on an update.

 

They run a stealth campaign on purpose. Somewhat similar to larping an F-117 in Yugoslavia...

 

Because Obsidian doesnt have anything to show yet, and even if they would have WIP-screenshot I wouldn't want them to show it because it would most probably just backfire due vast majority of the people being stupid and not getting that it's just WIP.

 

How many people usually a pre-order a game 2 years in advance with little knowledge about what it will become?

Kickstarter contributions should not be compared to sales until we see some hard numbers about how these games sell. I wouldn't be surprised if kickstarter contributors are only 5-10% of total people who would buy such a game.

 

You also have to consider that not 100% of the market for this game would support a kickstarter in general. You literary throw money at people with the vague promise that a game may arrive with time. I doubt all that many people, except more or less obssesed fans would go for it.

 

Wow, you really know how to be a dick to other (grown up) people.

 

The sword is strapped to her belt and she's merely carrying the axe. It's only a posture that doesn't try to emphasize her combat-readiness. And people carry far heavier stuff in more inconvenient ways. But what I meant with authentic realism is the details of her outfit.

I might be idealising, of course. That picture wakes up a good amount of 80s high fantasy art nostalgia in me. Something that even the art from IE games failed to deliver with their airbrushed modernish contemporary styles.

 

Not a solid argument.

The original presentation on KS was underwhelming. That clip was not enough. There would be no backfire if they had shown some artworks from the start, the skills systems, perks, classes and other things. But in the current situation, they basically dug themselves into a hole.
Each update can start a shitstorm: cool-downs, bland artworks, magic system, RTwP and so on. And now, they are basically afraid to show anything, because they don't want to lose money. A behavior which is not only unethical, but it also questions the entire vision behind this game. Sure, it makes sense from a financial point of view, but in the end, the idea is that: KS is a platform based on trust and Obsidian should show more trust in their fans, instead of clumsily chase the money.

 

You come across as extremely ignorant and illiterate, toro.

Whatever, this bit from the IndieRPGs interview caught my eye:

Kind of a crappy answer. "IE-game" is the new AWESOME button.

 

As it has been said in here so many times, Obsidian clearly has paced out the info they give on the whole month so they have something concrete to update on, such as classes just the other day. Giving information out gradually also helps them to keep Project Eternity in the news-sites when they potentially write news-stories on the developments and gain more visibility the kickstarter project.

They might not have specifics even down yet before they know how big budget they get so they wont have to re-do the designs, such as how many classes and races they can do, or what kind of combat/magic system they can have (as for example how many abilities and spells they can code into the game) - system with fewer spells works well with some other magic-system, but more spells needs different kind of system.

They are in the very early of the development and I completely understand why they chose to run the Kickstarter campaign now, instead of getting something ready - if they'd had designed the story, plot and scope of the game for say, 2 million dollars, and they would get 3 million dollars, they would have to at least partially redesign the game and it would take unnecessary time and money to do, and obviously manhours.

 

It's not too bright to ask for a screenshot from not existing game and everyone knows it. But they should show some concepts, screenshots from editors, things like that. Concepts- like scetches how the game is supposed to look like, even if it's just something scratched with a pen in metro.

Stuff from WIP games has been often appearing in PC magazines, strange it isn't now. In KS projects relations with community seem crucial, and meanwhile developers have no problems with typing at twitter how big shit they did in the toilet.

 

Care to say more than one line?