Game News Bard's Tale IV Kickstarter Update #13: Colin McComb and Chris Avellone Stretch Goals

[Excidium II]

So a stretch goal for an internal employee to work on the game (absurd) and another one who has already been used as a celebrity developer stretch goal and produced nothing of note. He has neither completed his Arcanum LP nor his Wasteland novel. These celebrity stretch goals are just boring and silly.

Yet they tend to work or Fargo and other KS wouldn't use them....

Well I guess we'll see with this campaign if this strategy can still work. I don't think RPGs have such a wide base to draw from with regards to funding, it's still a niche sector in gaming. I'm guessing most people that are backing games at this point have already plopped down money on other projects before, and the unfortunate truth is that these celebrities have generally been failures at doing anything of note. So we'll just have to see if fans have gotten tired of having MCA and the 4 or 5 other celeb developers continuously being paraded in front of them or if they have become jaded by their lackluster work.

I agree that the wow factor has certainly seemed to have worn off on these type of "stretch goals" as can be seen by the miniscule bump this last KS update generated.

Isn't it just because there's generally less interest in a new BT compared to other kickstarters, though?

Not to mention it's difficult to know the extent of their contribution without knowing the scale of the dungeons. I mean you are already getting a full game, is it worth it doubling your pledge to help getting an extra dungeon? Main problem with those celebrity stretch goals is their no-commitment nature

 

[roshan]

Not to mention it's difficult to know the extent of their contribution without knowing the scale of the dungeons. I mean you are already getting a full game, is it worth it doubling your pledge to help getting an extra dungeon? Main problem with those celebrity stretch goals is their no-commitment nature

Yeah, "we'll expand the game!" is completely meaningless when no scope has even been announced, I think backers at this point have realized that these types of stretch goals are just a sham.

 

[Love]

Yet they tend to work or Fargo and other KS wouldn't use them....

Because they haven't yet caught up on to the possibilities of using the celebreties like their fans want to. I'm thinking more in the way of Pirelli...

Spoiler

 

[Infinitron]

It's unreasonable to expect gamers to memorize the names of game developers. At best the average gamer remembers the studio that made the game, usually just the title.

Fargo and company should have hired people who knew how to make cRPGs when they made "Wasteland 2", that was on them and the backers trusted them to be able to make those hiring decisions. They had better deliver big with BT4 or Torment because they have no more 'nostalgia titles' to pimp on Kickstarter, and they will have burned whatever goodwill and trust backers have left in them. This is all on Fargo.

It's good to see the market in action. Harebrained Schemes and Larian don't have these problems, and for good reason. They deliver a product that meets or exceeds the backer's expectations. That is far and away the most important job they have. Random foot lockers with junk loot all the way to endgame and armor 'upgrades' that make you weak vs. energy weapons is just retarded game design. I'm personally happy to see those mistakes being punished, sending a firm message back to inXile, and I'm a guy who's very first and favorite cRPGs were Wasteland and The Bard's Tale. IP-lore is meaningless if you can't design a good game around it.

This Kickstarter has made more money than Shadowrun: Hong Kong

 

[Excidium II]

It's unreasonable to expect gamers to memorize the names of game developers. At best the average gamer remembers the studio that made the game, usually just the title.

Fargo and company should have hired people who knew how to make cRPGs when they made "Wasteland 2", that was on them and the backers trusted them to be able to make those hiring decisions. They had better deliver big with BT4 or Torment because they have no more 'nostalgia titles' to pimp on Kickstarter, and they will have burned whatever goodwill and trust backers have left in them. This is all on Fargo.

It's good to see the market in action. Harebrained Schemes and Larian don't have these problems, and for good reason. They deliver a product that meets or exceeds the backer's expectations. That is far and away the most important job they have. Random foot lockers with junk loot all the way to endgame and armor 'upgrades' that make you weak vs. energy weapons is just retarded game design. I'm personally happy to see those mistakes being punished, sending a firm message back to inXile, and I'm a guy who's very first and favorite cRPGs were Wasteland and The Bard's Tale. IP-lore is meaningless if you can't design a good game around it.

This Kickstarter has made more money than Shadowrun: Hong Kong

Not in practice

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

Give us 2 million dollars and you'll get two dungeons which will be a bit more insteresting than the rest of the game which will be written at a bland boring average level by nameless hacks.
Yeah ! Great ! What a perk !
The video game industry deserves to crash and burn.

If Fargo thinks that Avellone and Mc Combs are such great writers, he should have appointed them as main writers. He despises us so much that it really begins to show...
Hey Fargo ! Fuck you.

I'll go back to the jrpg/"moronic" section of the Codex, at least the japanese hire genuinely talentend people instead of intern hacks and then dropping keywords like sneaky snake oil crooks: turned-based ! Old-school ! A NPC written by Avellone ! The rest is shit ! Dragon Wars ! Wasteland !

Yeah, right.

 

[DeepOcean]

Right now I have no clue if the InXile team at Bard's Tale IV has any idea how to make a blobber, just Fargo promising stuff but last time, on Wasteland 2, I wasn't happy with the results. How big their dungeons are going to be? How about puzzles, riddles and anything non combat related? Are they linear or non-linear? How many InXile hopes to make? I think they should make an update about how delving on a dungeon on Bard's Tale IV will look like.

Sure, not a complete dungeon at this time but some concept of what we are to expect.Sure, Monte Cook and the PnP team have the experience but that not necessarily will translate on good dungeons and they are only commiting to a few of them, most of the game will be made by InXile own in house designers but after Wasteland 2, I'm kinda cautious.

 

[Morality Games]

The second half of Wasteland 2 showed promise.

On an unrelated note, I wish Avellone and Collin could switch places so that Avellone could work on elf country.

 

[theSavant]

Well this news hasn't exactly lit up the KS pledges so far.....

Given some stupidly long threads in this forum about the "shocker" Chris Avellone leaving Obsidian, I expected a huge part of community and PoE crowd to come over and join supporting Bards Tale. But nothing. Nada. Funny, because they were stupid enough to bite on the "play arcanum" stretchgoal, which was the most retarded thing ever for a KS.

 

[kazgar]

Maybe they should've promised he'd do a lets play of hunted: the demon's forge

 

[MicoSelva]

Along with Chris, we’re also bringing back the second Designer of Planescape: Torment and Creative Lead of a Torment: Tides of Numener, the inestimable Colin McComb! He will join our team at $1.7 million, designing a dungeon set in the Realm of the Elves, because we all know no one has mastered the craft of the Elves as Colin has.

So this stretch goal has an inXile designer working on an inXile game? How is this a stretch goal?

Yeah, I thought Colin McComb was already a permanent employee at inXile? Or is he just hired on a contract to make T:TON?

I would pay $1000 for a Crooked Bee stretch goal. (As a consultant of course)

If Crooked Bee designed or consulted on the game, it would be too hardcore for 90% of Codexers to play through (including me).

Well then Torment seems to be turning into the Zeno clash, Incal, Technopriests feel, so either it will gather the praise of the main press or alienate them. Numanuma is the real testing ground for Fargo.

Zeno Clash is great. I would love an RPG with a similar feel.

 

[Immortal]

It's unreasonable to expect gamers to memorize the names of game developers. At best the average gamer remembers the studio that made the game, usually just the title.

Fargo and company should have hired people who knew how to make cRPGs when they made "Wasteland 2", that was on them and the backers trusted them to be able to make those hiring decisions. They had better deliver big with BT4 or Torment because they have no more 'nostalgia titles' to pimp on Kickstarter, and they will have burned whatever goodwill and trust backers have left in them. This is all on Fargo.

It's good to see the market in action. Harebrained Schemes and Larian don't have these problems, and for good reason. They deliver a product that meets or exceeds the backer's expectations. That is far and away the most important job they have. Random foot lockers with junk loot all the way to endgame and armor 'upgrades' that make you weak vs. energy weapons is just retarded game design. I'm personally happy to see those mistakes being punished, sending a firm message back to inXile, and I'm a guy who's very first and favorite cRPGs were Wasteland and The Bard's Tale. IP-lore is meaningless if you can't design a good game around it.

This Kickstarter has made more money than Shadowrun: Hong Kong

Your talking about a third game of the series. We already know what to expect.
Ironically I pledged to that because I know what I will be getting.

Each game coming out of Inxile / Obsidian is a wildcard these days. I see potential but I'm not dropping stacks'o'cash on a wild card and dragging up DevCeleb's isn't gonna be enough to gain my shekals.

 

[DwarvenFood]

I would pay $1000 for a Crooked Bee stretch goal. (As a consultant of course)

If Crooked Bee designed or consulted on the game, it would be too hardcore for 90% of Codexers to play through (including me).

And too JRPG for the remaining 10%.

 

[Havoc]

I doubt the KS will get 1.7mil, nevermind the 1.9mil mark. 1.5mil is doable, the rest is fanta sea.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

I doubt the KS will get 1.7mil, nevermind the 1.9mil mark. 1.5mil is doable, the rest is fanta sea.

And why exactly would it not have the usual last days surge?

 

[Darkzone]

The interesting question is, what is Fargo going to do, if BV does not reach the 1.9 million. Declare that with the Paypal they have reached the goal? Is that perhaps the reason why the have not displayed the current paypal amount? Is he going to say sorry no job for MCA?

 

[Athelas]

I doubt the KS will get 1.7mil, nevermind the 1.9mil mark. 1.5mil is doable, the rest is fanta sea.

And why exactly would it not have the usual last days surge?

It having a last day surge does not mean it will get X amount of funding.

 

[Havoc]

I doubt the KS will get 1.7mil, nevermind the 1.9mil mark. 1.5mil is doable, the rest is fanta sea.

And why exactly would it not have the usual last days surge?

The surge will be 100k, maybe 200k. Not enough for 1.7mil.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

It'll be interesting to compare the impact of the late surge on this ks versus others we've followed. In this campaign they offered free games etc to incentivise people to pledge early, there may not be as many sitting on the fence waiting until the last minute.

 

[theSavant]

The interesting question is, what is Fargo going to do, if BV does not reach the 1.9 million.

I don't know... maybe he gives in to all requests of the community and offers:
-6 player core party
-full strategy guide as addon
-complete save system (anytime, anywhere)
-what else?

 

[ROARRR]

Ok some thoughts about this whole shit

1. The BT4 Kickstarter luckily for inxile didn´t start at 01.06.2015 (or on purpose?!)
why is that important: Because spreading word needs time and when it reaches people than there are some who
-already spend a lot of money for other Kickstarter
-are catching the info late...for example say 25.06.2015
consequentialy these people are "low" on money
Idea: Catching these people next month when they get their pay
Risk: The amount of people who applies to those named situation could be very minimal to none!

2. Taking one or more "famous" person who has proven his skills in the industry/genre is not a bad idea.
It worked for Tides of NumaNuma too.

3. Though there are visible trust issues caused by wasteland 2 (at least from my side), there is still the directors cut for free
(I don´t like the words "for free" when it is actually the game more or less I wanted in the first place!)
This shows that inxile is ready to give and to know what is really wanted (Though late but not too late I dare to say!).
Nevertheless trust is bred and butter for man, companies, nations, continents and one day even for planets.
So it would not hurt inxile to tighten the trust by showing some BT4 content from their aces!

Resume:

Spoiler

 

[theSavant]

 

[mindx2]

What I really find SHOCKING is no one around here has been demanding a Codex Fundraiser for BT IV!!! Now that says something about this KS...

 

[undecaf]

I think there were a few near the beginning of the campaign.

But as it seems that this has gotten more lukewarm than excited reception (unless I've missed something), how much could be expected from a fundraiser? 1-3K?

 

[mindx2]

Yeah, I should have used this instead as the level of pessimism angst armchair quarterbacking enthusiasm around here wouldn't exactly light up our fundraising totals. However, I would have loved for us to raise enough to let Crooked Bee design one of the puzzles for this... the amount of created by her puzzle would have been glorious!!