Game News Bard's Tale IV Kickstarter Update #30: Character Progression

[Darkzone]

Uh even the Kickstarter declares a release date of October 2017.
It's probably not going to come out in 2017.

Thanks for correcting me.

inXile might be in big trouble in Louisiana. They originally moved there because of a video game developers tax credit, but of course, the governor of Louisiana was a fucking worthless idiot who bankrupted the state, and it looks like all of the tax credits are going to get gutted. This has implications for the studio, of course. I have no doubt that they will finish the game, but it is hard to produce things when you are being jerked around by the state like that. I suppose they could find some way to stay in Louisiana, but the best option is to finish the game and move the studio back to California, or to Texas to some place else where the governor isn't a complete fucking idiot.

So the date is June 30 2017. I wonder if that will speed up the production?

 

[a mod]

I forgot about this one completely and never saw the kickstarter til it was done, but the update is somewhat promising.

Even without tax credits it's got to be a lot cheaper to live in new orleans than anywhere in california...all that does is jack the price needed for kickstarters up to double or triple.

 

[Decado]

Cost of living is cheaper, yeah, but when a state is dead fucking broke, nobody is safe. Taxes on everything -- real estate, goods, food, business products, you name it -- go up. Chicago is a great example: they're so fucking broke they are taxing Netflix subscribers at 9%.

No, their best bet is to get the fuck out of NOLA before employees start buying houses and shit.

 

[Darkzone]

They should have opened a studio in one of the V4 (Poland, Czech R., Slovakia, Hungary) countries. For each employee in USA, they could have hired at least 3 people there. Inxile is already using the cheap polish labor for QA and publishing, so the next natural step is to open there an office for development.
Gumbo isn't that good and i think that Bigos or Goulash could easy stand against it. Also the beer is far better in CE and instead of drinking Moonshine you will have premium Vodka.

 

[a mod]

They should have opened a studio in one of the V4 (Poland, Czech R., Slovakia, Hungary) countries. For each employee in USA, they could have hired at least 3 people there. Inxile is already using the cheap polish labor for QA and publishing, so the next natural step is to open there an office for development.
Gumbo isn't that good and i think that Bigos or Goulash could easy stand against it. Also the beer is far better in CE and instead of drinking Moonshine you will have premium Vodka.

Each employee is also 3-4x smarter than any hipster or anglocuck they could hire in california. Everyone there has to make 100k just to exist and they are almost all complete fucking idiots...half the programmers are even self taught for christ's sake.

 

[agris]

inXile might be in big trouble in Louisiana. They originally moved there because of a video game developers tax credit, but of course, the governor of Louisiana was a fucking worthless idiot who bankrupted the state, and it looks like all of the tax credits are going to get gutted. This has implications for the studio, of course. I have no doubt that they will finish the game, but it is hard to produce things when you are being jerked around by the state like that. I suppose they could find some way to stay in Louisiana, but the best option is to finish the game and move the studio back to California, or to Texas to some place else where the governor isn't a complete fucking idiot.

Yikes. Well, it was good for 1.5 years of development (including startup), at least.

Keep in mind that the cost of living in New Orleans, or the more rural or suburban part of Louisiana, is going to be 3 to 8 fold cheaper than Irvine and SF. I don't have a good Euro-centric comparison since I'm in the US, but a reasonable house for a family with 1 kid is probably on the order of $1000k, while similar quality could be had in Louisiana for $150k or less. In New Oreleans? ~$250k.

 

[Severian Silk]

You'd think NOLA would want to attract more of the Profitable Arts (PA) such as video game making.

[edit]

(All other art forms are unprofitable unless the artist has been dead for 50 years.)

 

[Metro]

... while similar quality could be had in Louisiana for $150k or less. In New Oreleans? ~$250k.

Closer to $350k unless you're talking about really shitty areas of the city. High-end 2000-2500ish sqft homes in a premiere area like Uptown go for over a million, easily. $550-850k is probably the next tier in Lakeview where all the crappy ranch homes were flooded out and torn down and replaced with 2500-3000 sqft mini-manors. I can't really speak for the rest of the state but I'd doubt you'd find some non-squalor house for $150k unless it was in the middle of fucking nowhere.

 

[Lurker King]

What, 17 posts and no comments on how skill trees are a plague that should burn in hellfire? Whatever happened to muh 'Dex??!

Some players here like to use an elitist grognard web persona, but they are actually superficial individuals. Take Shadowrun, for instance. The game was praised under false pretenses. Never mind if it has Bioware writing and popamole shallow design, as long as it is isometric and turn-based, we are entitled to appreciate this garbage. The new Bard's Tale involves the same process all over again. Never mind the use of skill trees. Let’s not let this discussion about mechanics get in the way of what really matters, i.e., the pretty graphics. Once again they can hide behind the facts that it was developed by a medium studio and is a blobber to praise a game that is not even finished yet.

 

[Morality Games]

What, 17 posts and no comments on how skill trees are a plague that should burn in hellfire? Whatever happened to muh 'Dex??!

Some players here like to use an elitist grognard web persona, but they are actually superficial individuals. Take Shadowrun, for instance. The game was praised under false pretenses. Never mind if it has Bioware writing and popamole shallow design, as long as it is isometric and turn-based, we are entitled to appreciate this garbage. The new Bard's Tale involves the same process all over again. Never mind the use of skill trees. Let’s not let this discussion about mechanics get in the way of what really matters, i.e., the pretty graphics. Once again they can hide behind the facts that it was developed by a medium studio and is a blobber to praise a game that is not even finished yet.

Bioware writing is shitty to the extent that it is (a) video game writing (b) a shameless power fantasy (c) always uses the same plot since BG2 -- collect your friends and fight the evil, don't worry, he'll wait for you (d) spirals into tokenism (e) cringy romances.

There are no romances in Shadowrun, it isn't really a power fantasy, the games don't use the same plots, you don't collect your friends and fight the evil. It is video game writing, and you can quibble about whether the representation of characters like Somali dwarf in Shadowrun: Hong Kong is an example of tokenism or not (it is cyberpunk after all, a globalist world were cultures are migrating everywhere), but even if so, it certainly isn't tokenism of a Bioware caliber.

 

[Archibald]

Every game is power fantasy.

 

[Morality Games]

Every game is power fantasy.

Most of them are, in some sense, including Shadowrun. Video games narratives tend to be about exercising agency you lack in real life. That's why I used the word *really.*

However, there's a huge world of difference between being a Runner who survives corporate machinations and pulls it off by the seat of his pants and being:

The Bhaalspawn -- the quasi-deity, elf lover who inadvertedly saves lives on the city scale and becomes a "pseudo" celestrial Paragon or Arch Fiend
The Hero of Neverwiner -- probably the closest to being working Joe, still has more celebrity and glory than any Runner even after Nasher played down his role in saving the city.
The Hero of Undrentide/The Devil Slayer of Waterdeep -- an epic level Plane Walker who survives cities falling from the sky and charges headlong into armies of devils, and the devils are the ones who are afraid. Most epilogues suggest he too becomes a quasi-deity because of his accomplishments (an immortal who wanders the Planes doing acts of goodness or evil)
Revan -- nuff said
The future Emperor of the Jade Empire, greatest kung fu master ever and polygamist who marries the two hotter royal cousins
The Warden, the kingmaker, one man army, and diplomatic mastermind -- probably also military commander based on the Battle of Denerim
Commander Shepard -- the fact that he is a Specter who can kill anyone and go anywhere with full legal license doesn't even matter as the series goes on because Shepard is a cosmic force in his own right that can't be "judged by" or "receive authorization from" mere mortals
The Champion -- the Champion
The Inquisitor -- pretty much redundant to say more at this point, but he's a trans national legal authority with most of the abilities of the Warden and the authority to imprison anyone -- he moonlights as the Avatar of an elf goddess

In Bioware game the power fantasy furnishes the core narrative and everything in it, in the Shadowrun Trilogy the power fantasies are tastefully incorporated into a plot that empathizes the Runners are way over their head.

 

[Sacred82]

There is no difference as either way you somehow possess superhuman abilities that allow you to shrug off everything a hyperpowered world throws at you. Cyberpunk is just as juvenile as any other power fantasy.

In fantasy settings you usually are in over your head too because the strings are pulled by beings or organizations beyond your grasp.

 

[Archibald]

But my power fantasy is better than yours!

 

[Lurker King]

Every game is power fantasy.

Yeah. How much did power fantasy affect game design over the years? Leveling, super items, etc. Is it even possible to make an enjoyable cRPG without these things? I notice that even revisionary games such as PS:T and AoD concede to these elements. Which cRPG is more down to earth and low-key? JA2?

 

[Archibald]

I don't think that it influences anything in particular. You got your target audience (or you are making game "for yourself") and you start designing your game around that, naturally at some point you also pick up narrative that will help to deliver particular power fantasy. If executed well target audience often doesn't even notice that they are doing some juvenile stuff. Obvious example being Morality Games' being completely oblivious to the fact that in Shadowrun games you constantly meddle with god-like beings and sometimes even end up empowering (or killing) them directly. I'm no expert on Shadowrun pnp, but from what I remember most campaigns wouldn't reach such levels of fan wanking as was the case in those crpgs.

 

[Morality Games]

There is no difference as either way you somehow possess superhuman abilities that allow you to shrug off everything a hyperpowered world throws at you. Cyberpunk is just as juvenile as any other power fantasy.

In fantasy settings you usually are in over your head too because the strings are pulled by beings or organizations beyond your grasp.

A lot of spurious reasoning going on here. Power fantasies =/= juvenile unless all popular fiction = juvenile.

The Japanese tend to group speculative fiction in 14-18 (and below) and 18-30 (and above), with further sub divisions by gender.

In Japanese logic, Shonen fiction (Male, 14-18 primary audience, but also targeted to large market of edgy younger kids as well as basically all ages and genders because "young male" is the dominant perspective in Japan's mainstream entertainment culture) would apply to all Michael Bay movies and basically all video games in existence.

That being said, Nolan films like Interstellar, Inception, and The Prestige would also be empowerment fantasies because they are about cool people in cool places doing cool stuff.

They still incorporate emotional and logical concepts that would be challenging for younger audiences to appreciate or understand compared to a Michael Bay Transformers movie.

 

[Sacred82]

There is no difference as either way you somehow possess superhuman abilities that allow you to shrug off everything a hyperpowered world throws at you. Cyberpunk is just as juvenile as any other power fantasy.

In fantasy settings you usually are in over your head too because the strings are pulled by beings or organizations beyond your grasp.

A lot of spurious reasoning going on here. Power fantasies =/= juvenile unless all popular fiction = juvenile.

The Japanese tend to group speculative fiction in 14-18 (and below) and 18-30 (and above), with further sub divisions by gender.

In Japanese logic, Shonen fiction (Male, 14-18 primary audience, but also targeted to large market of edgy younger kids as well as basically all ages and genders because "young male" is the dominant perspective in Japan's mainstream entertainment culture) would apply to all Michael Bay movies and basically all video games in existence.

That being said, Nolan films like Interstellar, Inception, and The Prestige would also be empowerment fantasies because they are about cool people in cool places doing cool stuff.

They still incorporate emotional and logical concepts that would be challenging for younger audiences to appreciate or understand compared to a Michael Bay Transformers movie.

The discussion wasn't about the emotional value of a game like Shadowrun Returns, or its logical structure (though, as with all power fantasies, both exist in questionable quantity), but wether story and gameplay mostly serve the player's wish fulfilment. And they do. You'd have to be a bit retarded to ever feel like you are on the defensive rather than constantly on the offensive in Harebrained's Shadowrun games. This is of course reinforced by classic RPG elements like linear power progression, no matter where you go and no matter if you are forced into fighting for your survival alone, you always get more powerful and more awesome-y doing so.

Power fantasies are juvenile because they don't rely on any working knowledge of the world, rather they exist in spite of it. The fact that you wish for your power fantasies to come in a package that seems mature doesn't change this. The urge to play is also juvenile. Still adults want different toys than we did as kids to satisfy it.

 

[Lurker King]

Ok, but being juvenile or not, it would be cool to have a cRPG without power fantasies for a change.